Poet Theresa Davis’ phrases on the Goat Farm as a part of the NEON POETRY venture. (All photographs courtesy of Theresa Davis)
Theresa Davis by no means imagined her phrases would grow to be a luminous show in crimson atop one in every of West Midtown’s cultural scorching spots.
A extremely lauded poet, educator and writer, Davis fought the urge to create as a baby. She sought out stability and practicality, which might stifle her self acceptance and delay recognizing her authenticity and queer id.
“It [poetry] undoubtedly saved elements of me that I believe had been making an attempt to atrophy, in a bizarre denial about the place I used to be alleged to go,” stated Davis, who has referred to as metro Atlanta residence because the age of 11.
In September 2025, the St. Louis native’s poem was immortalized by Sprint Studio as part of its SITE exhibit on the Goat Farm Arts Middle. “Ring Your self Awake” is the primary iteration of NEON POETRY, an ongoing lyrical and text-based collection of sculptures from Sprint Studio.
“The response has been overwhelmingly optimistic, particularly from our studio tenants and residents who’re realizing it’s right here to remain,” stated Allie Bashuk, arts and cultural curator at Goat Farm. “These [tenants] with home windows overlooking the work have been particularly delighted to get up every day to its considerate message.”
After accepting her queerness, Davis opened herself as much as a variety of “boomerang moments” that helped her make room for her personal innate inventive skills, together with affirmations within the type of nationwide and regional awards. She’s now on a mission to make sure the subsequent technology finds their voice ahead of she did.
Roped into poetry
Rising up, Davis’ dad and mom, Alice Lovelace and Charles Jikky Riley, would journey the nation performing poetry collectively and educating. Their love of phrases, libraries, science, historical past and tradition made an impression on their daughter.
“They had been each poets, and they also had been doing what I do now again within the ’70s, earlier than it was truly a factor,” Davis instructed ArtsATL. “You form of get roped into being [told] that you simply’re going to carry out a poem at this occasion.”
She spent her teen years studying a number of anthologies of poets together with Patricia Smith, Claude McKay and Nikky Finney. However even with all of the inventive power round her at residence and at her fingertips, Davis was drawn to the educational world first. Her dad and mom’ dedication to the humanities irrespective of the monetary pressure was inspiring, however it didn’t attraction to her, so she got down to be a instructor to pay the payments. She additionally thought of turning into a journalist.
“You know the way typically you need to make these choices, however you additionally know that issues price cash — your abdomen is hungry, and you need to put one thing in there,” Davis stated.
However even when she began educating for cash and stability, Davis now maintains she loves each writing and educating and realizes they will work collectively.
“I like the concept of having the ability to float between each — to have the ability to be on an instructional aspect and the crafting aspect of poetry,” she stated. “I can break down these components and be capable to talk it with different folks.”
Her boomerang second
Instructing took Davis on a 30-year journey, however it wasn’t a remaining vacation spot. As she started to note indicators of melancholy in herself within the late Nineteen Nineties and early 2000s, she additionally acknowledged that being married to a person was not her final cease, both. Her discontent needed to do along with her denial of her sexuality.
Her father took observe of her discontent, whilst his well being was failing after a stroke in 2003. In one of many final weeks of his life, he insisted on having a dialog along with her. Talking in a loud voice, which he hardly ever did, the lifelong musician and poet instructed Davis to “cease making an attempt to vanish.”
Per week later, he died.
“After his memorial, I made a decision that I used to be going to be seen. I used to be going to point out up in my life,” Davis stated. “I knew he was speaking about me being an artist and a bunch of different stuff, like, cease hiding who you might be. Cease being sad since you’re not straight. I simply had so many boomerang moments in my physique.”
Ringing herself awake
As her dad’s phrases echoed, Davis discovered herself divorced, residing her life absolutely as a homosexual girl and acting at open mics throughout Atlanta within the years after his dying. She met her longtime pal Nate Masks at a type of open mics at Java Monkey in 2011. The guy poets shared their work as Davis turned a mainstay on the Decatur espresso store over time. They each carried out as a slam staff in 2017.
“I can keep in mind the primary time she instructed me she preferred one in every of my poems, simply considering to myself, ‘I made it! Theresa Davis likes my poem!’” Masks stated.
Davis’ native aptitude for slam poetry started to result in the nationwide stage. She managed to get on the wait record for the Girls of the World Poetry Slam competitors in 2011. The occasion in Columbus, Ohio, featured greater than 70 slam poets from throughout the globe. She had arrived on the competitors with no expectations. Two hours earlier than the slam started, she discovered a poet one spot forward of her missed her flight. With a close to excellent rating in each spherical, Davis gained the worldwide slam competitors with a poem about her dad titled “Why I do that.”
“I went from not being within the competitors to profitable the competitors, and it was form of a type of moments the place I felt like I’d lastly gotten out of my method. And as soon as alternative knocks, it simply begins kicking doorways open for you,” she stated.
One other open door got here within the type of a e book deal Davis landed as a consequence of her poem “Respiration Classes,” about an early love affair with a lady. The completed e book, After This We Go Darkish, was revealed in 2013. The town of Atlanta even devoted a day to her, which occurs on Might 22 yearly. In 2017, her e book Mermaid’s Manifesto was featured on the “E book All Georgians Ought to Learn” record, and he or she was named Inventive Loafing’s “Better of Poetry and Spoken Phrase” artist from 2016 by 2019.
Davis is in awe of what has occurred since her personal awakening. She now mentors writers and champions the written phrase as literary program director on the ArtsXchange in East Level. Her complete household, together with her mother Alice Lovelace and her daughter, lead applications there. Although her father couldn’t see any of it earlier than he left the Earth, Davis is aware of he’s watching.
“I’m like, ‘See, look, Dad. Individuals can see me,’” Davis stated. “I’m loving this a part of myself.”
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Stephanie Toone, a contract editor and author, has amassed bylines in publications corresponding to The Atlanta Journal-Structure, The Tennessean, Civil Eats, Tough Draft Atlanta and extra. Exterior of journalism, she’s labored in nonprofit communications for areas that champion local weather and incapacity justice. She lives in metro Atlanta along with her son and enjoys a stable hike or karaoke evening.