Mobile Photography & Art – Saturday Poetry – On Working Remotely & No Longer Commuting with Chronic Pain by Camisha L. Jones
This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is entitled ‘On Working Remotely & No Longer Commuting with Chronic Pain’ by Camisha L. Jones. She is the author of the chapbook Flare (Finishing Line Press, 2017). The recipient of a 2017 Spoken Word Immersion Fellowship from the Loft Literary Center, she currently serves as the managing director at Split This Rock and resides in Herndon, Virginia.
Here she explains what this poem is about, “while writing this poem, I was thinking about my pre-pandemic commute to work—three hours total, one and a half hours each way. I was astounded at all I pushed through for years. My time off was mostly spent recuperating from work. The pandemic immediately transitioned me and my colleagues to working remotely full-time. It opened conversations between us about disability justice and how to unravel unrealistic work expectations. We began dreaming of new ways forward. May we not return to ‘normal’ and its toxic expectations of productivity and hustle. May we all listen to the body for sustainable ways forward.”
I have matched artwork by @sengulbekmez – Şengül Özdemir Bekmez with this image untitled. You can view her Instagram feed 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. This will mean we will be able to consider it.
To view the others we have published in this section, go here.
On Working Remotely & No Longer Commuting with Chronic Pain by Camisha L. Jones
the train leaves the station without me / so does the bus / the sidewalks stay empty of my steps—the rushed ones, the ones pierced with pain, the its-too-late-at-night to still be walking ones / i keep my cash / it doesn’t load my metro card and then another card when the first one’s lost / i don’t panic in the car about leaving late—least not as much / when winter comes, i don’t sit on the cold, cold bench waiting and waiting, clutching a pair of my stockpiled hand warmers / i don’t bundle myself up in oppressive layers / or unravel in the late night, releasing the day’s pressure like a punctured balloon / instead i sit / and continue to sit / in this chair then that one / look out the window to escape the screen’s demands / wonder how i ever had fuel for those past travels / i rest / and i rise / and listen to the body that’s carried me here as it whispers the way forward
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Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter is a British photographer, photography journalist, editor and curator and the founder and editorial director of TheAppWhisperer.com, an independent international photography publication established in 2009.Her journalism, criticism and commentary have appeared in The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Financial Times, BBC, Vogue Italia, LensCulture, Popular Photography, Android Magazine, NikonPro, DPReview, Which Digital Camera and Which Camera. She has lectured internationally on photography and mobile art, served as a juror for international photography awards, and exhibited her own photographic work across the UK, Europe, South Korea and the United States.Alongside her editorial work, Joanne's photographic and postgraduate research explores death, grief, memory, representation and social inequality through contemporary photography, participatory practice and visual research methods, with the longer-term aim of developing this work through doctoral research.Through TheAppWhisperer, she continues to publish independent photography journalism spanning contemporary photographic practice, mobile imaging, photographic apps, computational photography and emerging imaging technologies.Joanne is available for editorial commissions, photography projects, judging, curatorial work, speaking engagements, consultancy and selected collaborations.
