Mobile Art Saturday Poetry – ‘I Take Notes’ by Maria Lisella
This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is entitled ‘I Take Notes’ by Maria Lisella. Born in South Jamaica, Queens, Maria Lisella has lived in Astoria, New York for forty years. A poet and travel writer, she is a graduate of Queensborough Community College and Queens College, holds a Master’s degree from NYU-Polytechnic Institute, and attended the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Lisella is the author of three books of poetry, including Thieves in the Family (NYQ Books, 2014) and the chapbooks Amore on Hope Street (Finishing Line Press, 2009), and Two Naked Feet (Poets Wear Prada, 2009). She curates the 29-year old Italian American Writers Association literary series and is a charter member of the online poetry circle, Brevitas. An award-winning travel writer, her work appears in USA TODAY, The Jerusalem Post, Travel Market Report and the bilingual La Voce di New York.
Cited for Honorable Mention for the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award, Lisella has taught English as a second language and composition at Touro College and has taught Tourism and Hospitality at the Borough of Manhattan Community College. She is the outgoing poet laureate of Queens, New York.
I have matched mobile art by @debergenseboekenkast entitled ‘Wires’. To view her Instagram feed, please go 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
‘I Take Notes’ by Maria Lisella
… on my iPhone as if it were a reporter’s notebook, efficient and cool.
Detached, my voice raises itself to inquire to questions I already know the answers to, skull-filed
so many decades ago for future reference.
Reams of notes record incidents: calls to 911, a tossed chair, hunger strikes, “behavioral” issues
they call them, I surmise when he can no longer tolerate
Mp>The cinderblock walls, the fenced-in windows, the odors of bleach and Pine Sol
and alcohol, the wails and wants of other residents looking for a way home.
This time I even suggest sedation, but before that, attention.
In this pandemic his thwarted life has shrunk to Lilliputian size—no socializing
in the halls, no dance or music classes or current events discussions—no smoking
on the deck on cool nights.
Just this: a metal-framed cot-like bed with his poppy-printed gleeful sheets
he received for Christmas to remind him he is special after all.
Apart from the rest, for he gets company and kisses and snacks and cigars, jeans
and peanuts, Irish Spring soap and coconut shampoo.
He smells like a tropical breeze, is clean and fresh all day long.
He withdraws from the halls to the sounds of the Greek language as his blind fingers make love
to Alexa and he mouths the words of a country he dreams of but will never see.
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Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter, creator of the world’s most popular mobile photography and art website— TheAppWhisperer.com— TheAppWhisperer platform has been a pivotal cyberspace for mobile artists of all abilities to learn about, to explore, to celebrate and to share mobile artworks. Joanne’s compassion, inclusivity, and humility are hallmarks in all that she does, and is particularly evident in the platform she has built. In her words, “We all have the potential to remove ourselves from the centre of any circle and to expand a sphere of compassion outward; to include everyone interested in mobile art, ensuring every artist is within reach”, she has said. Promotion of mobile artists and the art form as a primary medium in today’s art world, has become her life’s focus. She has presented lectures bolstering mobile artists and their art from as far away as the Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea to closer to her home in the UK at Focus on Imaging. Her experience as a jurist for mobile art competitions includes: Portugal, Canada, US, S Korea, UK and Italy. And her travels pioneering the breadth of mobile art includes key events in: Frankfurt, Naples, Amalfi Coast, Paris, Brazil, London. Pioneering the world’s first mobile art online gallery - TheAppWhispererPrintSales.com has extended her reach even further, shipping from London, UK to clients in the US, Europe and The Far East to a global group of collectors looking for exclusive art to hang in their homes and offices. The online gallery specialises in prints for discerning collectors of unique, previously unseen signed limited edition art. Her journey towards becoming The App Whisperer, includes (but is not limited to) working for a paparazzi photo agency for several years and as a deputy editor for a photo print magazine. Her own freelance photographic journalistic work is also widely acclaimed. She has been published extensively both within the UK and the US in national and international titles. These include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Popular Photography & Imaging, dpreview, NikonPro, Which? and more recently with the BBC as a Contributor, Columnist at Vogue Italia and Contributing Editor at LensCulture. Her professional photography has also been widely exhibited throughout Europe, including Italy, Portugal and the UK. She is currently writing several books, all related to mobile art and is always open to requests for new commissions for either writing or photography projects or a combination of both. Please contact her at: [email protected]
