poetry Archives - TheAppWhisperer

Mobile Photography & Art Saturday Poetry – ‘Countdown as Slow Kisses’ by Michael Wasson

09/11/2019 by Joanne Carter

This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is entitled ‘Countdown as Slow Kisses’ by Michael Wasson. “We are given these bodies—full of beauty, ache, and history—and are told to survive. We lean into joy and marvel, into our living, and yet we know that what we desire ultimately devours us. Might we surrender as we climax toward our gorgeous, unbearable ruin? This poem says yes”, explains Wasson.

Michael Wasson is Nimíipuu from the Nez Perce Reservation in Lenore, Idaho. He earned a BA from Lewis-Clark State College and an MFA from Oregon State University. The author of Swallowed Light (Copper Canyon Press, 2021), Self-Portrait with Smeared Centuries (Éditions des Lisières, 2018), translated by Beatrice Machet, and This American Ghost (YesYes Books, 2017), Wasson is the recipient of a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship, a Native Arts & Cultures Foundation National Artist Fellowship in Literature, the Adrienne Rich Award for Poetry, and others. He currently lives in Japan.

I have matched this image by @velvet_iris_photography – Mari Mansourian – with this poem entitled ‘Up in the Air’. You can view more of her work 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.

Mobile Photography & Art Saturday Poetry – ‘On Floriography’ by Karen An-Hwei Lee

19/10/2019 by Joanne Carter

This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is entitled ‘On Floriography’ by Karen An-Hwei Lee. “This poem explores the ancient practice of floriography, the coded language of flowers, as a way to express human love through the use of fragrance, colors, and vivid symbolism. By elucidating the phenomenon of florescence alongside the art of floral arrangement, the poem encourages readers to extract poetry and beauty out of a dystopic world”, explained Lee. She holds an MFA from Brown University and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. A poet, novelist, and translator, Lee is the author of three books of poetry: Phyla of Joy (Tupelo Press, 2012), Ardor (Tupelo Press, 2008), and In Media Res (Sarabande Books, 2004), winner of the Norma Faber First Book Award and the Kathryn A. Morton Prize. Her most recent publication is the novel The Maze of Transparencies (Ellipsis, 2019). She works in university administration at Point Loma Nazarene University, and teaches in the low-residency MFA Program at Seattle Pacific University. Lee lives in San Diego, California.

I have matched this image by @solaristika44 – Marina Kozlova with this poem. You can view more of her work here.

To view the others we have published in this section, go here.

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Mobile Photography & Art Saturday Poetry – ’10 AM is When You Come to Me’ by Meg Day

28/09/2019 by Joanne Carter

This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is entitled ’10 am is When You Come To Me’ by Meg Day. Day explains the meaning of this poem, “Hearing folks frequently ask Deaf folks to imagine our lives differently: they ask how we haven’t killed ourselves without music (because they would); they want to know how much we miss the sound of birds, our lover’s voice; and they don’t want to learn ASL but they want to have sex with the lights out. As I try to de-center nondisabled and hearing priorities in my work, I’ve had to think differently about the relationships I have with people who occupy those identities. This poem refuses the basic complaints of audism—and the simultaneous oversexualization of queer bodies, and desexualization of Deaf and disabled ones—in order to tend the nuances of being TransDeaf and falling in love with a cis woman who is disabled but not Deaf. It’s a poem about the complicated and intimately gendered synesthesia of sight as sound. It’s a love poem about DEAF-GAIN: I can imagine another life, but I don’t want it.”

Day is the author of Last Psalm at Sea Level (Barrow Street, 2014), winner of the Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize and the Publishing Triangle’s 2015 Audre Lorde Award. She lives in Pennsylvania.

I have matched this image by @george.kamelakis entitled ‘Marigold’

You can view and follow his work on Instagram here.

To view the others we have published in this section, go here.

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Mobile Photography & Art Saturday Poetry – ‘Fall’ by Didi Jackson with imagery by Jennifer Graham

14/09/201914/09/2019 by Joanne Carter

This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is entitled ‘Fall’ by Didi Jackson. “I am curious to know how we come to understand death, its permeance and inevitability. These two young girls were moved and saddened at the goldfinch’s crash into my window, but they accepted the result with a resolve adults either find more difficult or ignore all together. Unfortunately, I know this is only one of several sorrows they will face in their lifetime. I wish I could change that fact for them, but ultimately no one can”, explained Jackson of this poem.

I have matched this image entitled “And there are never really endings, happy or otherwise. Things keep going on, they overlap and blur, your story is part of your sister’s story is part of many other stories, and there is no telling where any of them may lead.”~ Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus. By @j a Graham – Jennifer Graham with this poem.

You can view and follow her work on Instagram here.

To view the others we have published in this section, go here.

Source poets.org

Mobile Photography & Art Saturday Poetry – ’10 am is When You Come To Me’ by Meg Day with @jilllian2 – Jill Lian

17/08/2019 by Joanne Carter

This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is entitled ’10 am is When You Come to Me’ by Meg Day. Day explains her thoughts behind this poem and they resonate with me. “Hearing folks frequently ask Deaf folks to imagine our lives differently: they ask how we haven’t killed ourselves without music (because they would); they want to know how much we miss the sound of birds, our lover’s voice; and they don’t want to learn ASL but they want to have sex with the lights out. As I try to de-center nondisabled and hearing priorities in my work, I’ve had to think differently about the relationships I have with people who occupy those identities. This poem refuses the basic complaints of audism—and the simultaneous oversexualization of queer bodies, and desexualization of Deaf and disabled ones—in order to tend the nuances of being TransDeaf and falling in love with a cis woman who is disabled but not Deaf. It’s a poem about the complicated and intimately gendered synesthesia of sight as sound. It’s a love poem about DEAF-GAIN: I can imagine another life, but I don’t want it.”

Meg Day is the author of Last Psalm at Sea Level (Barrow Street, 2014), winner of the Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize and the Publishing Triangle’s 2015 Audre Lorde Award. She lives in Pennsylvania.

I have matched this image entitled ‘Shine Bright’ by @jilllian2 – Jill Lian with this poem.

You can view and follow her work on Instagram here.

To view the others we have published in this section, go here.

Source poets.org

Mobile Photography & Art Saturday Poetry – ‘Disclosure’ by Rebecca Givens Rolland with Rene Valencia

03/08/201903/08/2019 by Joanne Carter

This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is entitled ‘Disclosure’ by Rebecca Givens Rolland. She is the author of three poetry collections, including The Wreck of Birds (Bauhan Publishing, 2012), winner of the May Sarton New Hampshire Prize.

I have matched this image untitled by @reneviolence – Rene Valencia.

You can view and follow his work on Instagram here.

To view the others we have published in this section, go here.

Source poets.org

Mobile Photography & Art Saturday Poetry – ‘Remember’ by Joy Harjo with @hipstanitaelle – Anita Elle

27/07/2019 by Joanne Carter

This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is entitled ‘Remember’ by Joy Harjo. Appointed the new United States poet laureate in 2019, Harjo was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1951, Harjo is a member of the Mvskoke/Creek Nation. She is the author of several books of poetry, including An American Sunrise, which is forthcoming from W. W. Norton in 2019, and Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings (W. W. Norton, 2015). She is a current Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

I have matched this image untitled by @hipstanitaelle – Anita Elle.

You can view and follow her work on Instagram here.

To view the others we have published in this section, go here.

Source poets.org

Mobile Photography & Art Saturday Poetry – ‘Breathe. As in. (shadow)’ by Rosamond S King

29/06/2019 by Joanne Carter

This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is entitled ‘Breathe. As.in’ by Rosamond S King. King is the author of Rock | Salt | Stone (Nightboat Books, 2017), winner of the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Poetry.

“I often revise poems using my ‘shadow poems’ exercise detailed in the book Spellbound: The Art of Teaching Poetry. I take a poem, and then rewrite it in different ways or contexts: the poem’s shadow, the poem with mustard, the poem divorced, etc. This poem is the ‘shadow’ of ‘Breathe. As in.’, a response to Eric Garner’s murder by police, which was originally published in Transition magazine. Both poems are part of my ‘Living in the Abattoir’ series, set in a speculative space similar to the USA, in which people of color live in an abattoir (slaughterhouse) in which they are both workers and meat. The poems address how under difficult circumstances people pursue both survival and joy”, explained King.

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I have matched this image entitled ‘Caught in the Storm’ – by @ange_ombre – Ro Lannes, with this poem.

You can view and follow her work on Instagram here.

To view the others we have published in this section, go here.

Mobile Photography & Art Saturday Poetry ‘This Morning I Pray for My Enemies’ by Joy Harjo with @ja_graham

22/06/201921/06/2019 by Joanne Carter

This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is entitled ‘This Morning I Pray for My Enemies’ by Joy Harjo. Harjo was appointed the new United States poet laureate in 2019. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1951, Harjo is a member of the Mvskoke/Creek Nation. She is the author of several books of poetry, including An American Sunrise, which is forthcoming from W. W. Norton in 2019, and Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings (W. W. Norton, 2015). She is a current Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Source poets.org

I have matched this image entitled ‘The Book of Tea’ – Kakuzo Okakura by @ja_graham – Jennifer Graham.

You can view and follow her work on Instagram here.

To view the others we have published in this section, go here.

Mobile Photography & Art Saturday Poetry – ‘I hope to God you will not ask’ by Esther Belin with M. Cecilia Sao Thiago

15/06/201914/06/2019 by Joanne Carter

This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is entitled ‘I hope to God you will not ask’ by Esther Belin. She explains, “this poem is an anagram poem using a phrase taken from Navajo headman, Barboncito, in his speech to General Sherman on May 28, 1868. As a citizen of the Navajo Nation, I am grateful to our leaders who had courage and vision to express our innate connection to our homeland, Diné bikéyah. This poem was inspired by the work of Terrance Hayes and his wonderful craft of anagram poetry.”

Belin is the author two poetry collections, including Of Cartography (University of Arizona Press, 2017), and From the Belly of My Beauty (University of Arizona Press, 2000), winner of the 2000 American Book Award. She is a Navajo Nation citizen and lives in southwest Colorado.

Source poets.org

I have matched this image entitled ‘We march backwards into the future’ by @klimtt – M. Cecilia Sao Thiago with this poem.

You can view and follow her work on Instagram here.

To view the others we have published in this section, go here.