Philadelphia Poet Kai Davis Featured at Temple News

Philadelphia poet and activist Kai Davis is the recipient of a Transformation Award from the Leeway Foundation. Davis is a graduate of Temple University. As explained by the Leeway Foundation and the Temple News, "The award recognizes women and trans artists in the Philadelphia area who have been creating art for social change for five years or more." Let's pick up with Davis's response from there: 

“I cried all the way up the stairs to my apartment, and I live in a four-story walk up,” said Davis, a 2016 Africology, African-American studies and English alumna.

Davis, a poet, author and editor at the Philadelphia-based Apiary Magazine, plans to use the grant to host a series of free poetry workshops for Black women and femmes — an umbrella term for feminine-identifying people — in the city.

Many of her poems explore the intersection of race, power, gender and sexuality and the effect it has on people’s identities and society as a whole.

Videos of Davis, a two-time international grand poetry slam champion, performing poems that are focused on her identity as a Black queer woman, like “F— I Look Like” and “Ain’t I a Woman?,” have tens of thousands of views online.

Davis shared the news of the grant in a video on Instagram, where she said, through tears, “For anyone who knows me…you know that this last year has been hard. I lost my father, I’ve been struggling trying to be a full-time artist, so this award means more than anything right now.”

Read more at the Temple News.