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The following poem was inspired by Diane Wilbon Parks' artwork, Poetry X Hunger Logo, which appears on the Poetry X Hunger website--ART - Poetry X Hunger. Belly of Silence Theme: Child hunger and quiet suffering. In the morning light, a bowl stays bare, Crumbs of hope drift through the air. Tiny hands fold in quiet grace, A hollow ache behind her face. The fridge hums low, a ghostly song, Of nights and days that stretch too long. She counts the tiles upon the floor, To distract from hunger she can't ignore. The school bell rings — she drifts inside, Where empty lunch bags do not hide. A growl, not loud, but deep and grim, Becomes her lullaby, soft and dim. She does not cry, she does not plead, She's learned to swallow every need. While others feast on bread and meat, She dines on dreams and skipped heartbeats. At recess, she will turn away, From trading snacks or games of play. She traces stars upon the ground, Where silent hunger makes no sound. A teacher glances, eyes too kind, But dares not ask what she might find. Pride is stitched into her sleeves, Worn like armor that never leaves. She folds her pain in paper tight, Draws a sun with colors bright. Because in art, she still can choose, A world where no child ever chews On air for lunch, or fights to grow, In homes where love can’t feed the soul. The following poem was inspired by Dr. Jayne Shatz artwork, The Empty Bowl, 2023, which appears on the Poetry X Hunger website--ART - Poetry X Hunger. The Line Theme: Hunger and dignity in poverty. Wrapped in coats too thin for the cold, They stand in line, the young and old. Ticket numbers, silent prayers, Shuffle feet and downcast stares. The wind cuts sharp, but no one speaks, Their stories hidden in tired cheeks. A mother clutches a child near, Whispering hope no one can hear. It's not just food their bodies lack, But weightless worth upon their backs. The ache goes deeper than the bone -- It’s in the sense of standing alone. Soup and rice, a meager fill, Can't touch the shame that lingers still. The ladle dips in steady grace, But none dare lift their masked-up face. They trade their names for numbered slips, Their hunger tucked behind closed lips. Dignity frays with every step, Though pride is something they still’ve kept. But food is only half the hunger. The rest is harder to name: The hunger for warmth, for a job that pays, for a home that’s not just a roof but a place where dignity lies. But when the spoon meets a trembling hand, A kind of peace might try to stand. For even one warm, quiet bite Can hold a flicker of fading light. A glance, a nod, a softened sigh -- Small things that let a soul get by. And in that room where hope feels thin, They find the strength to stand again. The following poem was inspired by Dr. Jayne Shatz artwork, The Hunger Trilogy, 2023, which appears on the Poetry X Hunger website--ART - Poetry X Hunger. Gnaw Theme: Hunger as a physical and emotional concern. There is a gnaw that doesn't sleep, A restless claw that digs too deep. It creeps through ribs like whispered lies, A hunger no one justifies. No kitchen hum, no buttered toast, No sizzle-song from Sunday roast. Just tap-water dreams in chipped-glass cups, And stomachs that won’t shut up. The fridge is mute, the cabinets bare, A silence thick like heavy air. No scent of stew, no crusty bread-- Just echoes of what once was fed. It’s not just food the body seeks-- It’s dignity and voice that speak. To say: I am, I breathe, I feel, I need more than a silent meal. There’s a gnawing in the soul as well, A hollow place no one can tell. It aches for worth, for being seen, For more than what has never been. The world walks by with hurried eyes, While hunger dresses in disguise. A smile, a nod, a laugh too loud-- All trying to silence what’s not allowed. And still the gnaw remains, it grows, Through sleepless nights and threadbare clothes. Yet deep inside, a voice holds fast-- I matter still. I will outlast. BIO: Rana Musleh is a student at Baruch College majoring in English, a member of the Phi Eta Sigma National Honor Society, and an aspiring lawyer. Through poetry, she explores themes of social justice, resilience, and the quiet strength of marginalized voices. Her writing blends creative expression with a passion for advocacy and systemic change. She is also a 2025 (Re)Generation contest participant, using art to promote environmental and social responsibility.
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The following poem was inspired by Diane Wilbon Parks' artwork, Poetry X Hunger Logo, which appears on the Poetry X Hunger website--ART - Poetry X Hunger. Love in a Time of Ruin I fed my daughter oats in warmed milk cucumbers slivered from their skin carrots râpéed into haystacks I fed my girl carbs coated in slugs of extra virgin oil sprinkled with acid lemon zest I fed her pasta & cheese pasta & cheese pasta & cheese pasta neglected cheese pasta & neglect Fed up I fed her up then sat down to write a poem My girl went hungry in the morning I sat and wrote another she went hungry in the afternoon I sat and wrote another & another & another That evening we read them together hungry she went into the kitchen & discovered how to feed herself. The following poem was inspired by Dr. Jayne Shatz's artwork, The Hunger Trilogy, which appears on the Poetry X Hunger website--ART - Poetry X Hunger. The Cost of Living I suffered a panic attack today: my shopping bag felt light-headed, my milk turned my eggs shrank back from the sides of their cardboard nests and had a wobble I’ve tried to never watch the news, never keep abreast of what the government think-tanks think or whose stroke of genius is making headlines spin and yet I couldn’t help but notice the cost of living-breathing-eating-heating rise I couldn’t help but notice the pound slip between the stitched seam of my pocket A lady over the phone checks my state of consciousness, asks me if I’m having difficulty breathing? I’d hardly noticed lately I’ve been breathing less (more shallowly) living less (more shallowly) loving less (more shallowly) And yes I’m having difficulties yes it’s left me breathless The lady on the phone advises me: ‘Take deeper breaths’ but I can’t find my words to explain I can’t afford to take deeper breaths I can’t afford to phone a friend I can’t afford to use a lifeline can’t afford to survive so I breathe less & less & less & less & less This poem was originally published in Mslexia magazine, www.mslexia.co.uk, issue 98 (2023).  Katrina Moinet won Globe Soup Short Story and Flash Fiction prizes, has a Master's in creative writing, and runs Blue Sky Versify monthly open mic.
'Portrait of a Young Girl Falling' is Katrina's debut poetry pamphlet (Hedgehog Press, 2024) and a second, prizewinning collection is forthcoming in 2025. @KMoinetWrites | katrinamoinet.com The following poem was inspired by Dr. Jayne Shatz's artwork, The Empty Bowl, which appears on the Poetry X Hunger website--ART - Poetry X Hunger. Open our bronze hands Sculpted to endure and serve image to stir an instinct and open our own human hands. Holding an empty bowl, just picked clean of that last grain. This bowl, like a mother’s hands holding the work of the world, to fill and feed Painful pangs ring from barren brass sides, sustained resonant calls to Fill the bowel, fill the bowel. Imagine our bronze bowl filled, with gentle mother’s fingers, passing portions to babies’ lips Again and again–fingertips to lips Imagine our bronze bowl held like infant’s hands ‘round her breast grabbing to find latch, given milk from breasts like full bowls. Imagine the bronze bowl filled Hands together To serve our hungry Touch those needing And execute justice These are, bronze hands, end -less, the Divine’s hands, our hand, imagine.  Joseph Caperna is a physician in San Diego, CA, who spent his career dedicated to HIV. To bring compassion, caring, and listening into his medical practice, he shares poetry with his patients and their families. Joseph has traveled over 60 years to 6 continents. These experiences have inspired prose and poetry that he is starting to submit to publish.
The following poem was inspired by Dr. Jayne Shatz's artwork, The Empty Bowl, which appears on the Poetry X Hunger website--ART - Poetry X Hunger. Fading Away hunger so strong that even imagination does not ease off the pain because the mind is weaker than the limbs and not even the hymns can be remembered as the hunger gives the feeling that the belly is being ripped asunder and as the growling sounds off like thunder until the ears can hear no more because the senses no longer respond … yet there is no food in sight and there is no might left and with no rights to even one proper daily meal there is no way for this body to heal so I fade away  Linette is a Virgin Islands poet with roots in the BVI and USVI. She began writing in 1996. Linette's work is available in her Kindle book, "Be Inspired: Poems by Linette Rabsatt," on her blog, “Words of Ribbon,” "Virgin Islands Callaloo: Poems from the Caribbean," and on the Visual Verse website.
Nature's Hunger Strike The following poem was inspired by Diane Wilbon Park's artwork which appears here on the Poetry X Hunger website. All over southern Africa, a drought year or two Alfalfa is dwindling or easier said, fate without fattening, this is... Thrown a book as this, There's no thinking cheap beef suffices dear meatarian And, where to when destocked, when robbed of natural wealth dear breeder? Distressed field crop is surrendering without coughing out a relief mealie cob, Put up to dry out just as logs—heatwave torching ready—in a furnace flame atmosphere, Plant and body are, all but sun-drying. All and sundry goes knocking on ancient granaries of folks rural, As soon, supermarket shelves are emptied of hiked price leftover merchandise. Much like retrogression, From computing, crashing to manual re-booting the slowest days ever. Weather reports are paying condolences in advance, Informing of nothing but a death warrant paid forward, It is over, is it? ...Fast forward, this is where physical flesh "longs in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is" remember them souls... This dry spell offers no promise of natural food supply replenishments, chain aggravatingly broken loose. In-land storage of a precious liquid commodity has become ineffectual. For instance, damming is under damning circumstances that are without refill inflows, stockpiles from last years fast dissipating. Even rivers' veins and stretch marks, lie open with depositions at meanderings not anymore a panning secret. Nature's resolution is to have all its yesteryears' lenience fully suspended it seems. As communities lacking in resilience "wait for the rains" no more! Within season, favourable odds of normal to above normal rainfall are under lock and key, heaven having no room for both duty and liquidity slack. Quite an ask for a return to innocence to the drought resistant small and traditional grains world, from here on after. But, for once nature is acting like a protesting wife, colloquially on a conjugal hunger strike [sic] Blameworthy still is MAN, abusive to mother Earth. Hence, this sucker punch risk of nil harvests, the severest of an unreproducible grieving episode, occurrent in a marriage of convenience that's without goal congruence On issues of ecological sustainability net zero. Die is cast! All industrial emit malpractice eventually pays a price unbearably heavy as this, And, like fish out on the river beds as bare and naked dry, Ozone layer is depleted Living creatures are left to die and rot. Click to hear the poet read the poem.  Brian Manyati aka Towandah Ryan is a poet who has been practicing since 2016 with VaChikepe and The Hundred Sailors (The Sailors Trust). He authored The Milk Men poetry collection published in 2023. His pay off line is together we achieve more.
The following poem was inspired by Dr. Jayne Shatz's artwork, The Empty Bowl, which appears on the Poetry X Hunger website--ART - Poetry X Hunger. TABLE OF FOOD Father puts food on the table. Mother stocks the house with anything affordable. She buys with money in hand. Children eats and are not sad. A stranger came and took Dad's food money. The table of food was there in secret. And children were told, no honey. And so they took biscuits. And so we are never filled. And now something is grilled. And children have to wait. So they are not given a bait. The following poem was inspired by Dr. Jayne Shatz's artwork, The Hunger Trilogy, which appears on the Poetry X Hunger website--ART - Poetry X Hunger. UNDERNOURISHED Some people die of hunger. Because they are famished. When there is little to eat. And they are many. After the loss, they look ahead. With hope and thoughts filled with doubts. They may fight and lament about the past. Because of the terrible episodes of being in want. A blessing like showers of rain. That makes things sprout. And so food comes for them to eat. Making them revive again.  I enjoy teaching and learning. The goal is to reach as many as possible. I am still studying and like research.
The following poem was inspired by Dr. Jayne Shatz's artwork, The Empty Bowl, which appears on the Poetry X Hunger website--ART - Poetry X Hunger. The Bottom of the Bowl Hands wrap fingers as a feature frame on the braze bowl to hopefully feel full. Hunger has a sound heard by hearts hurting. Emptiness expands and elates the insides where life waits for food to leverage a weary wilderness. The bottom seems silent until a soul speaks to transform growls into growth. Smiles greet the belly when nourishment bakes bread beyond what a bowl holds within its base. May the world we live in strive to meet needs by delectable morsels and not memories of lack.  Traci Neal is a neurodivergent spoken word artist listed on Poets & Writers residing in Columbia, SC. She is featured in The New York Times, Mahogany (Hallmark) writing community, The Elevation Review, 1619 Speaks Anthology in 2023 (Sims Library of Poetry), and many other media publications. In 2023, she was a Pushcart Prize Nominee for The Elevation Review, longlisted for the African Diaspora Award with Kinsman Quarterly, the second-place poetry winner of the National Career Development Association, and the second-place poetry winner of the South Carolina Career Development Association. Neal uses her poetry platform to help bring awareness to non-profits in need worldwide.
The following poem was inspired by Dr. Jayne Shatz's artwork, The Empty Bowl, which appears on the Poetry X Hunger website--ART - Poetry X Hunger. An Empty Bowl has no home carries no story- it walks the streets, crouches at crossings waits in corners to let the sun wash it clean. It seeks no fancy recipes no gourmet food just the residue, a spill of life- broken rice so often half cooked, stuck to the bottom of the pan with a coal lining. Bio: An engineer and management consultant by profession, Abha Das Sarma enjoys writing. Her poems have appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Verse-Virtual, Sparks of Calliope and The Ekphrastic Review among others. Having spent her growing up years in small towns of northern India, she currently lives in Bengaluru.
The following poem was inspired by Dr. Jayne Shatz's artwork, The Empty Bowl, which appears on the Poetry X Hunger website--ART - Poetry X Hunger. Hunger Dance Why not give it to me now, my death certificate? Why wait until my heart stops walking, until my body tumbles over the cliff of consciousness? I haven’t eaten in days. Because I’m bed-bound, my son and daughter used to bring me food. Stop, I told them. You’re pulling bread out of your childrens’ mouths. It’s nighttime, my best time for resting and healing. The moon is full and the stars dance in a web of luna celebrations. Tonight, though, heat beats through the room, greases the bedrail, darkens the sheets with sweat. I pull up my shirt for relief and watch my ribs glisten in the moonlight, rising into their own constellation, ready to join the party above. The sound of my body shutting down is deafening. Still, I discover a small repository of strength. I extend my hand. Please, I say. Give me what you can.  Karl Kadie is poet and author of Revenge of Nature and The Burning House. His poetry has appeared in The Sailors Review, Poetry Ink Anthology, The Santa Clara Review, New Verse News, and many other publications.
The following two poems were inspired by Diane Wilbon Parks' artwork which appears on the Poetry X Hunger website--ART - Poetry X Hunger. Full Empty Bowl Spoons…a fork… all with handles stretched and thin as a mother stretches thin her supplies for grateful gruel Mouths…open wide in hope and anticipation of sustenance that never shows except in drips and drabs that can’t sustain Faces…faces hue the spectrum shapes geometrically twisted like innards filled with pangs angry entrails spit parched accordion growls The big empty… the big empty-empty bowl holds naught but air so like the bellies of those who stare into its barren depths And fruit…and veggies… all outside the bowl so full of emptiness so full of broken-meal-promises and shards of sated dreams And eyes… eyes that stare in longing bulging squinting in their unrelenting seeking searching for even a tiny morsel A morsel… mighty enough to start saliva flowing in arid maws filled with too-soft teeth or none at all A bowl…a bowl wide enough deep enough to hold only but an infinitesimal smidgen of the soup we —the full-- discard daily Click to hear the poet read the poem.  T. A. was a seed planted in the Caribbean soil of Trinidad & Tobago on the cusp of the transformational 60s. He was watered and fertilized in the gardens of Brooklyn, New York and Hartford, Connecticut throughout most of the bell-bottomed, “blaxploitation-movie-era” of the 70s. Had trials by fire in the USMC in the late 70s to early 80s. Budded and bloomed in academia in the 80s and 90s, before his withering began at the turn of the 21st century. Yet, before he falls from the stem, and is ground once more into dust, he hopes to feed a mind or two. He relishes the thought of others being nourished by his expressions. T. A. is also thrilled to have narrated Mud Ajar, the latest collection of poems penned by Poetry X Hunger's founder Hiram Larew and made available to the public by Atmosphere Press.
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