Atlanta spoken word artist Mia S. Willis' poetry dedicated to the Black queer Southern experience

In WABE’s “City Lights” series “Speaking of Poetry,” Atlanta’s most prolific wordsmiths discuss the art of evoking emotions with words. For this edition of “Speaking of Poetry,” we feature poet Mia S. Willis. 

“I would describe my poetry as being dedicated to capturing the Black queer experience in the South,” Willis says. “I grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I am a lifelong Southerner … I write to cast light on the cracks on our reality, to expose the fallacies, to show people both what I know and what I don’t know and what I’m willing to acknowledge as gaps.”

In this segment, Willis shares an excerpt from the poem “Juneteenth,” written a few years ago to honor the holiday and the crafting of the Juneteenth and Republic of New Afrika flags. It was also published by Palette Poetry.