Mobile Photography / Art – Saturday Poetry – Ageing- By Ruth Fainlight
I wanted to celebrate my birthday with you this weekend, tomorrow I will be another year older and I am bursting with gratitude to you all. We are fertilised by time thus allowing our individual uniqueness to blossom. Each one of our powerful hearts, illuminate and inspire, enabling us to conjoin and to share. Thank you to each and everyone of you, we are one!
This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is a poem aptly entitled ‘Ageing’ by Ruth Fainlight.“Fainlight provided a role model for women poets at a time when sexism and tokenism were nastily predominant” The Guardian. Born in New York in 1931, Fanlight is a poet, short-story writer and translator. She has lived in England since the age of 15. Her most recent book is Moon Wheels (2006).
Source: PoetryArchive.org
I have matched @moon_swinger‘s image with this poem. You can follow her on Instagram here.
To view the others we have published in this section, go here. To ensure your image receives our attention, please upload it to Instagram with this hashtag – #theappwhisperer
i
Since early middle-age
(say around forty)
I’ve been writing about ageing,
poems in many registers:
fearful, enraged or accepting
as I moved through the decades.
Now that I’m really old
there seems little left to say.
Pointless to bewail
the decline, bodily and mental;
undignified; boring
not to me only but everyone,
and ridiculous to celebrate
the wisdom supposedly gained
simply by staying alive.
– Nevertheless, to have faith
that you’ll be adored as an ancient
might make it all worthwhile.
ii
Ageing means smiling at babies
in their pushchairs and strollers
(wondering if I look as crazy
as Virginia or Algernon –
though I don’t plan to bite!)
Realising I’m smiling at strangers.
It means no more roller-skating.
That used to be my favourite
sport, after school, every day:
to strap on my skates,
spin one full circle in place,
then swoop down the hill and away.
When I saw that young girl on her blades,
wind in her hair, sun on her face,
like a magazine illustration
from childhood days, racing
her boyfriend along the pavement:
– then I understood ageing.
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Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter is a British photography journalist, editor, curator, and the founder of *TheAppWhisperer.com*, one of the world’s leading platforms dedicated to mobile photography and art. Since its launch in 2009, TheAppWhisperer has become an international hub for artists of all levels to discover, learn, exhibit, and engage with contemporary photographic practice.Built on principles of inclusivity, accessibility, and artistic excellence, Joanne has spent almost two decades championing mobile photography as a serious artistic medium. Through interviews, critical essays, exhibitions, competitions, and education, she has helped shape and document the evolution of mobile art on a global scale.Her work has taken her internationally, lecturing on photography and mobile art at institutions and events including the Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea, alongside appearances in the UK and Europe. She has served as a juror for international photography and mobile art awards across Portugal, Canada, the United States, South Korea, Italy, and the UK.Joanne is also the founder of *TheAppWhispererPrintSales.com*, one of the first online galleries dedicated exclusively to collectible mobile art, connecting artists with collectors across Europe, the United States, and Asia.Before founding TheAppWhisperer, Joanne worked extensively in print journalism and photographic publishing, including roles at a paparazzi photo agency and as deputy editor of a leading photography magazine. Her freelance journalism, criticism, and commentary have been published widely in both the UK and the US, with bylines in *The Times*, *The Sunday Times*, *The Guardian*, *Popular Photography*, *NikonPro*, *DPReview*, *Which?*, *Vogue Italia*, *LensCulture*, the *BBC*, and more recently, the *Financial Times*, where her published letters on photography continue to contribute to wider conversations around the medium.Alongside her editorial and curatorial work, Joanne’s own photographic practice has been exhibited internationally across the UK, Europe, South Korea, and the United States. Her work increasingly explores themes of grief, loss, death, memory, and the body.Her current research interests centre on grief, death, and poverty, with forthcoming postgraduate study leading towards doctoral research in these areas.Joanne is currently developing new long-form writing and photographic projects and is available for commissions, editorial projects, speaking engagements, and collaborations.Contact: joannetheappwhisperer@gmail.com)
