Trapeta Mayson

Since 2019, concurrent with her poetry readings and outreach as Poet Laureate of Philadelphia, Mayson has worked as the program officer for a mental health service agency in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia.

Mayson taught at the Art Sanctuary for 8 years, along with serving as an artist in residence at Art Sanctuary’s after-school teen arts program, and Painted Bride Art Center’s ArtLAB Youth Poetry Series.

Mayson was chosen as the fifth poet laureate of Philadelphia in 2019, under the auspices of the Free Library of Philadelphia. According to the selection committee, the poet was chosen because of her ability to balance a full-time poetic writing practice with participation in many local Philadelphia organizations. According to the poet, in her role she aspires to “touch base with social service agencies, particularly those pertaining to mental health, in [Philly’s] communities.” She considers the role to be “...like a poetry ambassador for the city, ... Engaging communities, young people, people from all over the city, and engaging them in the creation of poetry, appreciation of poetry.”

In 2019, she was awarded an Aspen Words Emerging Writers fellowship from the Aspen Institute. She also served as a juror for the 2019 Scholastic National Writing Awards from the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers in the category of Poetry.

The author was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2016.

From 2014 to 2018, Mayson served as the executive director for Historic Germantown, an historic preservation collective that manages and promotes 16 historic houses in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia. During her tenure there, she worked with former Poet Laureate of Philadelphia Yolanda Wisher on various poetry events along with an initiative to bring artists into Historic Germantown with the goal of helping teens to engage with the historic properties and learn about Philadelphia and American history. The 2015 program, named Culture Keepers, partnered with the Parkway Northwest High School for Peace and Social Justice to pilot a program of historic site visits where students engaged in photography, captioning photos in Instagram, geocaching, and conducting oral history interviews with local elders. Later, local writers guided the high-schoolers in creating poems reflecting on their learned experiences, which the students presented live at a Historic Germantown open house.

From the Leeway Foundation, she received both an Art and Change Grant in 2014 and a Transformation Award in 2007.

The poet was a 2002 fellow of the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage.

In the early 2000s Mason was the vice president of education and family learning at the Please Touch Museum, a museum focusing on creating tactile learning experiences for younger children via "purposeful play" that also correlates to local and state educational standards.

The author has collaborated with jazz guitarist Monette Sudler on the Sisters in Music project since 2000. They have multiple recordings, including two recent poetry and jazz pieces, "Scat" and "How we got through". In their spoken and sung word and music collaboration, Mayson extolls her female viewers to "Keep climbing" as "You can only go up from here." and to "Fly, girl, fly." despite their struggles against various oppressions, while Sudler encourages them to "Step up to the plate." in a softball-themed metaphor for life.

She was a fellow of the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts in both 2000 and 2004.

She received her undergraduate degree in political science from Temple University in 1993. Mayson is a licensed social worker and received her Master of Social Work from the Bryn Mawr College Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research in 1995. In addition, she holds an MBA from the Villanova University School of Business.

Born in Monrovia, Liberia, Mayson immigrated to the United States in 1975 with her family at the age of eight and settled in Philadelphia. She grew up in the North Philadelphia and Germantown neighborhoods. According to Mayson, she considers herself to be a "sum of two continents... two countries, two sets of powerful people: my birth country of Liberia, and my beloved Philadelphia.”

Trapeta B. Mayson (born 1967) is a Liberian-born poet, teacher, social worker, and non-profit administrator residing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US. Her writing primarily centers on the experiences of immigrants to the United States, the struggles of people dealing with conflict in Liberia, and the daily lives of average people, especially women and girls. She received a Master of Social Work from Bryn Mawr College and an MBA from Villanova University. She was selected as the fifth Poet Laureate of Philadelphia in 2019.