Mobile Art Saturday Poetry – ‘Why I Write Poetry’ by Leah Kindler
This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is entitled ‘Why I Write Poetry’ by Leah Kindler. She is a senior at Emerson College pursuing a BFA in creative writing with a minor in global and postcolonial studies. The president of the Emerson Poetry Project, an open mic organization, Kindler is a three time member of Louder Than A Bomb (LTAB), the largest youth poetry festival in the world.
I have matched artwork by @otonoelito with this poem, untitled.
You can view his 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.
via Poets.org
Why I Write Poetry by Leah Kindler
Because I could say my friends’ exes live in a swamp in my heart
and no one would ask what it means.
Because my head is level and my wrists are narrow.
Because after block parties and cookouts my mom corralled us
into the bathtub to wash dirt from our soles.
Because nowadays I go to bed with unwashed feet.
Because everyone who didn’t eat breakfast in my house hates grapefruit.
Because instead of letting people in, I rebuild myself around them.
Because it haunts me that my aunt would still be alive
if she still had health insurance.
Because I still think about characters in books I read at age eleven
now nameless and faceless.
Because all my poems end up in AP style.
Because I always have a crush on someone taller than me.
Because I can’t find anyone in New England who knows what it’s like
to ride the Brown Line over the Chicago River in summertime.
Because my best friend and I have different words for love.
Because I’m still afraid to die.
Because I rode Razor scooters on the blacktop with the boys before school.
Because walking through Boston feels like spitting out cold air.
Because I spend a Valentine’s Day at a funeral I couldn’t cry at.
Because the winter always makes me like this.
Because I don’t know what I mean by like this.
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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.
