<![CDATA[Poetry X Hunger - Historical Hunger]]>

<![CDATA[Poetry X Hunger - Historical Hunger]]>Mon, 20 Apr 2026 18:02:18 -0400Weebly<![CDATA[Poem by Isabela Basombrío Hoban]]>Sun, 18 Jan 2026 05:00:00 GMThttps://www.poetryxhunger.com/historical-hunger/poem-by-isabela-basombrio-hobanUNITY (Unity can end hunger)

Open my eyes: a stream of light
Open my mouth: a burst of questions
Open my heart: a wheel barrow comes to the fore carrying vocal cords
I feel a surrendered tenderness pulsating in my chest
Weak point
I imagine a vast, clear space, in my head
A mind
My stomach
Wants to protect, give abundance
If only hunger could be eaten
If only desire could be undesired
An inclination dreaming in cloud forests
Intuition that comes from an unknown address
Abundance that the earth gives
Cycles that give cycles
Unity that gives me death
Unity that gives you eternity
Unity that gives us, us

This poem first appeared in Isabela's book "Rain Love Death Poets", published by Ediciones Vitruvio, Madrid.

THEME: Historical Hunger

Isabela Basombrío Hoban is an award-winning poet. Originally from Peru and living in Ireland, she is a bilingual poet writing in both English and Spanish. Her recent books are "Nothing belongs to everyone", "Rain Love Death Poets" and “Another type of abbreviation.” Isabela is the recipient of the 2023 Nuevo Ateneo Online Literary Award. She participates in international poetry festivals, and her poetry has been partially translated into several languages.

]]><![CDATA[Poem by Wayne Lee]]>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 05:00:00 GMThttps://www.poetryxhunger.com/historical-hunger/poem-by-wayne-leeFirst, You Feed Them
—after Jane Hirschfield

You live in the desert, on a dusty road,
far from the farthest place.
You live on shifting sand, on borrowed time,
the narrow edge of breath.
And every day they come, the foot-sore,
the destitute. You open your door and look
in their eyes. They say nothing.
They ask nothing. They have nothing.
You know nothing of them but that each
has a story, a dream half-smothered
in their dusty past, a need that drives them on.
You do not ask. First, you feed them.
First you offer a glass of cold water, a place
for them to wash up and lie down, a room
where they can feel safe.
Only then, in the light of the new day,
do you say, Tell me about your people.
Only then can their stories be heard
above those of your own. Only then do you see
that those visitors are you.

THEME: Historical Hunger

Writer, editor and teacher Wayne Lee (wayneleepoet.com) lives in Santa Fe, NM. Lee’s poems have appeared in Tupelo Press, Slipstream, The New Guard, Writer’s Digest and other journals and anthologies. He was awarded the 2012 Fischer Prize and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and four Best of the Net Awards. His collection Dining on Salt: Four Seasons of Septets was published by Cornerstone Press in April 2025, and his collection, The Beautiful Foolishness, is forthcoming from Casa Urraca Press in March 2026.

]]><![CDATA[Poem by Sarah Sutro]]>Wed, 01 Oct 2025 04:00:00 GMThttps://www.poetryxhunger.com/historical-hunger/poem-by-sarah-sutroDhaka

arriving in Dhaka
the city unfolded,
opening doors and pathways
to understanding,
some passages so
painful
I can never forget

in years that followed
the city became a portent
more than memory, of what
the world could and would
be: teeming, restless
too-full, mostly unknown

but how to account
for the difference:
riding in the car
from
Gulshan to
the center of the city,
beset by people,
begging:

to be included in the world,
to be seen,
to be given something
to eat

Written in 2021; THEME: Childhood Hunger, Historical Hunger

A poet and painter, Sarah's work responds to the natural world and the challenging world we have created. Finishing Line Press and Blue Asia Press have published her poems and essays. In 2000, she won a Pollock Krasner grant, and in 2005, was a finalist for a Robert Frost award.

]]><![CDATA[Poem by Natasha Sajé]]>Thu, 21 Aug 2025 04:00:00 GMThttps://www.poetryxhunger.com/historical-hunger/poem-by-natasha-sajeLeningrad

I've heard stories about hunger:
my mother begging for turnips for two years.
my father roasting the tongues
of his boots when the war ended.
But neither had it as bad as the people
in Leningrad, sieged for nine hundred days, three winters
without food. They traded diamond rings
and icons for meat patties. Human meat,
slightly sweet like horseflesh, though fattier.
I know it's easy to lose one's hunger:
after days, it deepens to a dull ache,
and after weeks of eating nothing,
the body's used itself
for fuel, and food's foreign as plastic.
But when instead of fasting you eat a little,
you remain ravenous, conscious
of sour breath and the stomach as an open sore,
and eager to admit that everything feeds
on something in this world.
For that admission, nothing expiates, not
the weekly airlift, not
parks lined by avenues of birches, not
voices in candlelit chapels,
and not summers
bathed in long, milky northern light.

THEME: Historical Hunger

Natasha Sajé was born stateless in Germany, and grew up in New York City and its suburbs. Her books include The Future Will Call You Something Else (Tupelo, 2023); a postmodern poetry handbook, Windows and Doors: A Poet Reads Literary Theory (Michigan, 2014); and a memoir, Terroir: Love, Out of Place (Trinity UP, 2020). She teaches in the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing Program and lives in Washington, DC.

]]><![CDATA[Poem by P. S. Perkins]]>Thu, 07 Aug 2025 04:00:00 GMThttps://www.poetryxhunger.com/historical-hunger/poem-by-p-s-perkinsGRAVEYARD SHIFT

I live amongst the graveyard shift.
cars tightly parked
early evening any given day of seven-day week.
apartment full of tenants
frozen food dinners
take-out wrappers

with no space to play silently in the corner.
Early morning risings before sun that never sets.
One rotation after another...
changing shifts from mother
to brother
to sister to uncle...
couldn’t beat the heat to keep up.
Masters in the corners taking bets wondering
which one they can catch next
stealing from the factory line
where the break never comes
unless you give up someone
to the sacrificial gods of mechanized greed
in our need to work ...
the graveyard shift.

THEME: Historical Hunger
From the poet: Family went through this during past and recent times to cycle jobs and provide food, etc. My mother damaged her hand on such a line and...while scraps sometimes came home...from a variety of "lines".

As an author and scholar, P. S. Perkins is published in several prose/poetry anthologies, as well as published professional works on Human Communication.

Her motto is: Be true to your word because it will always be true to you!

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