Mobile Photography & Art – Saturday Poetry – Self-Compassion – James Crews
This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is entitled ‘Self-Compassion’ by James Crews. He is the author of The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection and Joy (Storey Publishing, 2022) and the co-founder of the Poetry of Resilience seminars. Crews wrote ‘Self-Compassion’ the summer after the pandemic first began. He explained ‘when I felt so worried for the state of our country and planet, when everything in our individual lives also seemed to be falling apart—the leaky pipe, my husband’s health. I’m a recovering cynic, so self-care practices can still seem silly to me, but in this case, I had no choice but to be kind to myself, the wise…
Mobile Photography & Art – Saturday Poetry – ‘The Lonely Sleep Through Winter’ Kemi Alabi
This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is entitled ‘The Lonely Sleep Through Winter’ by Kemi Alabi. Born in Wisconsin in 1990, Kemi Alabi earned their BA in Philosophy and Political Science from Boston University. Their first full-length poetry collection, Against Heaven, was selected by Claudia Rankine to receive the 2021 Academy of American Poets First Book Award. They live in Chicago. I have matched artwork by @ja_graham – Jennifer Graham with this image entitled “In common with most people of artistic perception, I like trees. While looking out of my window toward the wooded hills one summer night, a caravan of camels seemed to be traveling across the sky.…
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…
Mobile Photography & Art – Saturday Poetry – Remember by Joy Harjo
This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is entitled ‘Remember’ by Joy Harjo. She 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. I have matched artwork by @marshadraws – Marsha Este with this poem entitled ‘2022’. You can view her Instagram feed here. If you would like to…
Mobile Photography & Art – Saturday Poetry – ‘So Much Happiness’ by Naomi Shihab Nye
This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is entitled ‘So Much Happiness’ by Naomi Shihab Nye. Shihab Nye was born on March 12, 1952, in St. Louis, Missouri, to a Palestinian father and an American mother. During her high school years, she lived in Ramallah in Palestine, the Old City in Jerusalem, and San Antonio, Texas, where she later received her BA in English and world religions from Trinity University. Nye is the author of numerous books of poems, most recently Cast Away: Poems for Our Time (Greenwillow Books, 2020). Her other books of poetry include The Tiny Journalist (BOA Editions, 2019); Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners (Greenwillow Books, 2018); Transfer (BOA Editions,…
Mobile Photography & Art – Saturday Poetry – ‘Riverkeeper’ by Margaret Gibson
This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is entitled Riverkeeper by Margaret Gibson. She was born in Richmond, Virginia. She received a BA from Hollins College and an MFA from the University of Virginia. She is the author of several collections of poetry, including Not Hearing the Wood Thrush (LSU Press, 2018); Broken Cup (LSU Press, 2014), a finalist for the 2016 Poets’ Prize; The Vigil: A Poem in Four Voices (LSU Press, 1993), a finalist for the National Book Award; and Long Walks in the Afternoon (LSU Press, 1982), a Lamont Poetry Selection. The recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Pushcart Prize, Gibson…
Mobile Photography & Art – Saturday Poetry – ‘This Poem is Asking For Your Love’ by Grace Cavalieri
This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is entitled ‘This Poem is Asking For Your Love’ by Grace Cavalieri. She received a BS in Education from New Jersey College and an MA in creative writing from Goddard University. The author of over forty books of poetry and plays, including most recently What The Psychic Said (Goss publications, 2020) and Other Voices, Other Lives (Alan Squire Publishing, 2017). Grace holds The Associated Writing Program’s George Garrett Award, as well as the Pen-Fiction, the Allen Ginsberg, Bordighera Poetry, and Paterson Poetry awards, the “Annie” Award, The inaugural Folger Shakespeare Library Columbia Award, The National Award from The Commission On Working Women, and The CPB Silver…
Mobile Photography & Art – Saturday Poetry – ‘The Year Before I Left For Mars’ by Margaret Rhee with Photography by Liz Anderson
This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is entitled ‘The Year Before I Left For Mars’ by Margaret Rhee. She is a poet, scholar, and new media artist. The author of Love, Robot (The Operating System, 2017), she is an assistant professor at SUNY Buffalo in the Department of Media Study where she co-directs the Palah Light Lab, a media lab focused on queer and feminist poetry and gaming. She lives in Buffalo, New York. “I read a magazine article once that featured everyday individuals who signed up to move to Mars in a future time. What was extraordinary was that in order to do so, these people signed up knowing they’d…
Mobile Photography & Art – Saturday Poetry – ‘Hum’ by Ann Lauterbach with Photography by Marian Rubin
This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is entitled ‘Hum’ by Ann Lauterbach. Born in 1942, Ann Lauterbach was raised in New York City. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, she attended Columbia University on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. She moved to London before completing her M.A. in English Literature. She lived in London for eight years, working variously in publishing and art institutions. On her return to the United States, she worked for a number of years in art galleries in New York before she began teaching. After the attacks of September 11, there was an outpouring of national grief and an uncharacteristic attention to poetry.…
Mobile Photography & Art – Saturday Poetry – The One Mockingbird Only Sings at Night by Hannah Sanghee Park
This weeks Saturday Poetry, matched with mobile photography/art is entitled ‘The One Mockingbird Only Sings at Night’ by Hannah Sanghee Park. Hannah Sanghee Park is the author of The Same-Different (Louisiana State University Press, 2015), which was selected by Rae Armantrout as the winner of the 2014 Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets. I have matched artwork by @ adrianmcgarry – Adrian McGarry’s image entitled ‘Mountain Air’ to this poem. 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…
