Mobile Photography / Art – Saturday Poetry ‘One Night Comes Like a Blessing’ by Grace Nichols with Mimi Svanberg
This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is entitled ‘One Night Comes Like a Blessing’ by Grace Nichols. If you find sleep elusive you will enjoy this poem and indeed Grace Nichol’s collection, The Insomnia Poems. Nichols is an insightful poet. Born in Georgetown, Guyana, in 1950 Nichol’s grew up in a small country village on the Guyanese coast.
She moved to the city with her family when she was eight, an experience central to her first novel, Whole of a Morning Sky (1986), set in 1960s Guyana in the middle of the country’s struggle for independence.
She worked as a teacher and journalist and, as part of a Diploma in Communications at the University of Guyana, spent time in some of the most remote areas of Guyana, a period that influenced her writings and initiated a strong interest in Guyanese folk tales, Amerindian myths and the South American civilisations of the Aztec and Inca. She has lived in the UK since 1977.
Source British Council Literature
I have matched @imagomimago – Mimi Svanberg’s image with this poem. You can view and follow her on Instagram here.
If you would like to be featured in our Saturday Poetry section, please ensure you include the hashtag #theappwhisperer to any images posted to Instagram. That will mean we will be able to consider it.
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
[Also, don’t miss how to be included within our Artist Directory – here]
‘One Night Comes Like a Blessing’ Grace Nichols
Like a cruel lover or spiteful mistress
No-Sleep demands my restless attentiveness.
No-Sleep prefers me stripped –
a dark projectionist
winding and unwinding the reel of my thoughts.
An old grained movie I can’t switch off –
a starring of loves and loss, TV footage,
soft tears, mortifications, smothered laughs.
Then, one night comes like a blessing.
A visitation of wings that sees me falling.
Whoever wants me now, I am swimming
towards my House of Dreams.
Let no one disturb this peace.
Let no one shake me
even from the branches of nightmares.
Come morning I am reborn again –
a fresh-faced Eve – emerging from the rib’s shadow –
ready to meet the daily pandemonium of living.
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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)
