Poetry X Hunger
  • Home
  • Art Auction to Alleviate Hunger
  • Hunger Poetry
    • Hunger Poems
    • World Food Day Poetry Competition >
      • 2021
      • 2020
      • 2019
      • 2018
    • Maryland Poets
    • International Poets
  • About
    • About the Initiative
    • Initiative Founder
    • Advisory Board
  • News & Blog
  • Young!
    • Poems by Young Poets
    • Videos
    • Materials for Teachers
  • Library
    • Extent of Hunger >
      • Global Hunger: Progress & Challenges
      • Hunger in the US
    • Historic Accounts of Hunger >
      • Africa
      • The Americas
      • Asia
      • Europe and Russia
    • Historical Poems
    • Interviews
    • Recent highlights
  • Contact/Submit/Take Action
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Call to Action
    • Resources & Donations >
      • Global resources
      • US resources
      • Maryland resources

Poems submitted for the 2019 World Food Day Poetry Competition

Poem by Jay Carpenter

12/12/2019

0 Comments

 
​Finishing School
 
Teach a man to fish
And he will eat,
Will stuff his face
Like baked flounder,
Full to bursting
There are so many fish
 
Teach a fish to man,
To sprout stump legs
To slither-crawl
Suck air
To hop-stand-run
To sprout hair
Thumbs
To hunt, wage war
To fish!
And he will consume the planet.
 
His scales will fall like coins,
The cost of transformation
But the scales will never fall from his eyes,
And he will never again feel the fins
That once propelled him
In concert with his brethren
Though skull be widened,
He cannot be trusted
For he is just a fish
And it is unwise to teach
A fish to man.
 
​6 August 2019
Picture
  • ​​Jay Hall Carpenter (Montgomery County, MD) has been a professional artist for over 40 years, beginning as a sculptor for the Washington National Cathedral, and winning numerous national awards for his work. He has written poetry [Dark and Light, Poetry (2012)], plays, and children’s books throughout his career and now sculpts and writes in Silver Spring, MD.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Poems

    These poems were recognized at the 2019 WFD Poetry Competition

    Archives

    January 2020
    December 2019

    Poets

    All
    Barbara Goldberg
    Claudia Gary
    Diane Wilbon Parks
    Don Illich
    Emille Bryant
    Grace Cavalieri
    Jay Carpenter
    Joyce Graves
    Kate Richardson
    Liz Reitzig
    Luther Jett
    Maritza Rivera
    Mary Ann Larkin
    Max Ochs
    Natalie Lobe
    Pam Winters
    Patricia Gray
    Patric Pepper
    Paul Guenette
    Q.R.Quasar
    Rachel Carillo
    Reana Kovalcik
    Robert Giron
    Rob Winters
    Sally Toner

    RSS Feed

Copyright PoetryXHunger 2022


Search the website:

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Art Auction to Alleviate Hunger
  • Hunger Poetry
    • Hunger Poems
    • World Food Day Poetry Competition >
      • 2021
      • 2020
      • 2019
      • 2018
    • Maryland Poets
    • International Poets
  • About
    • About the Initiative
    • Initiative Founder
    • Advisory Board
  • News & Blog
  • Young!
    • Poems by Young Poets
    • Videos
    • Materials for Teachers
  • Library
    • Extent of Hunger >
      • Global Hunger: Progress & Challenges
      • Hunger in the US
    • Historic Accounts of Hunger >
      • Africa
      • The Americas
      • Asia
      • Europe and Russia
    • Historical Poems
    • Interviews
    • Recent highlights
  • Contact/Submit/Take Action
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Call to Action
    • Resources & Donations >
      • Global resources
      • US resources
      • Maryland resources