Poetry X Hunger
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Create!

That's the purpose of this section. You are encouraged to read the poems

posted here and elsewhere on the Poetry X Hunger website, to look 


at 
the historic accounts of hunger, famine and starvation, or consider the

​prompts suggested and then... write some poetry about hunger.
 

Poems by J R Turek

4/30/2022

7 Comments

 
At Pat’s Farms

At a time in our life we’d rather forget,
a happening we will never forget.
Late afternoon, we hover over racks
Reduced for Quick Sale, ripe and
ready produce, pray we find vegetables,
salad fixings, maybe fruit for dessert
if there is any.

We find a cello-wrapped pack
of cucumbers we can slice tonight
and soft tomatoes I can make a hearty
sauce for over our plain pasta.

Our meager finds held in grateful hands,
we stand on line behind shopping carts
opulent with clear bags of lush berries,
fresh veggies, and exotic fruits from
aisles we don’t venture down.

The total is $2.17; we’re ready with
two singles, a dime, nickel, and
two pennies. The cashier smiles,
packs our dinner into a handled bag
and says, “It’s paid.” We hold our
our open palms with the money, stutter
“But — .” She waves over her shoulder
that the woman on line ahead of us who
just left paid our bill. “Have a nice day,”
patting my hand as she passes me the bag.

We talk about it all the way home, still
remarking these dozen years later when
life has almost righted itself, feeding us
with thankful blessings, we revel in how
amazing it was, never sharing the story,
still wondering
how did she know?
--
Backyard Farmer

Sustainability has us tilling soil,
adding amendments, peat moss,
earth-friendly fertilizer, and has us
researching to grow our own veggies.

We attend a garden seminar, learn
that peppermint plants will keep
the family of bunnies living under
our deck from munching on our crops.
Broccoli. I never thought to plant it,
didn’t buy it yesterday from the fruit
stand because it didn’t look healthy,
that not-so-good green I often see
and call pesticide green. We can get
three crops from just one plant,
enough for the season.

Strawberries – he shows us a verdant
pot, tiny buds set, tells us to expect
a bountiful crop of about 40 berries
per plant. This will be a deck pot that
will travel inside – expect berries for
Thanksgiving and Christmas and snow
day mugs full of berries delivered to
blizzard shut-in neighbors in need of
sweet berry smiles.

Next, Romaine lettuce growing broad
lime-green leaves already, plant now
in cool temperatures, no fertilizer,
let it grow. Next, spinach. None for
me. I’ll plant it in a part of the garden
without peppermint plants so the bunnies
can feast. Of course, we’ll plant our usual
crop of cucumbers – kirbys and divas for
me, marketmore 76 for Paul, several more
peppermint plants. Cherry tomatoes –
sungold, grapes, and sweet millions,
enough to feed the entire town. This
new outlook of working the soil, saving
our planet, ravenous to learn and share
sustains us through hungry times of solitude.
--
Poem Garden

What if there were no produce departments
or farm stands, no place to buy grapes or
tomatoes, no watermelons in summer, no
seven varieties of lettuce to salad your hunger
for crisp, healthy eating...

What if words no longer worked to tell a story,
or show a reader the lining of your heart in verse,
no way to know how nourishing a poem can be
for someone starved of metaphoric sustenance,
void of satisfying similes...

What if a famine befell us, like a virus that spread
around the world, in cities and farmlands, urban
and suburban alike, a pandemic to keep us from
hugging, from touching hand to hand or reaching
out across a screen of technology to know we
are not alone...

What if we overcame our fears, followed wise
counsel, emptied our hearts of rage and anger
to write love poems, emptied our refuse piles
to rake in amendments to change our outlook
to planting seeds of unity to sprout nutritious,
delicious meals of poems served on vibrant
platters to everyone in every town, city, state,
country of our survival on a planet we adopt
as mother, plant a garden of wholesome words
with roots to reach everyone...

​would you feel nourished?
I would.
Picture
​J R (Judy) Turek, Superintendent of Poetry for the LI Fair, 2020 Hometown Hero by the East Meadow Herald, 2019 LI Poet of the Year, Bards Laureate 2013-2015, editor, workshop leader, recipient of two Pushcart nominations, and author of six poetry books, the most recent 24 in 24. ‘The Purple Poet’ has written a poem a day for 18 years; she lives on Long Island with her soul-mate husband, Paul, her dogs, and her extraordinarily extensive shoe collection.

7 Comments

Poem by T. A. Niles

4/30/2022

0 Comments

 
The Planter

He knows a thing or two
          about edibles emerging tentatively
          from trampled earth from tilled earth
          from earth that lies dormant
          until impregnation of seed
          until saturation of life’s liquid
          until the warm bright gleam penetrates
          the fleeing darkness

He knows about planting
          planting seeds in soil rich or barren
          on hills swept clean while wind whistles
          near streams that gush or trickle
          ​on desertscapes bereft of promise
          in skyscraper gardens and rural enclaves
          of the lost and forgotten

Yes. He knows about planting
          planting ideas that curl and spiral up
          from smokey inspiration
          spaced just so…
          so they can breathe, can stretch
          their ephemeral limbs
          before settling in
          to the hard work of feeding
          minds and spirits…

He knows their gripping pangs
          their clenching their yearning
          gaping maws reminiscent of avarice
          yet are more kin to need not greed…
          when you dive into the depths
          penetrate into the core of things
          what’s required is sustenance
          not comeuppance

He knows beyond the power of gray matter
          and questing tendrils
          knows somehow in his marrow
          in his molecules that prickle
          all the way to skin,
          from corns and callouses to follicles
          that mere morsels can serve
          as understudies for feasts

He knows that his heart beats
          his blood flows, his neurons fire
          in replication of all who breathe
          have breathed
          will breathe…
          their hues as salient as dandruff
          ​on a white jacket
Picture
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.

0 Comments

Poem by Blair Ewing

4/30/2022

0 Comments

 
Food is Love – A Toast
Blair Ewing is a poet who lives just north of Baltimore.  He has been publishing and
performing his poems for more than forty years.  His multi-album audio book "Word of Mouth"--rumor has it will appear in digital form in 2022.
0 Comments

Poem by Naomi Ayla

3/10/2022

0 Comments

 
Poverty
from Wild Animals on the Moon
​

It gives you pigeon eyes, makes you
brave as a cracked slate
with all the weight of a house on top.

It bids you
hold out your quaky hand
through bittersweet temptations.

You dream of it as slick
silvery fish between your hands
wide-eyed and breathless
but it circles your bleeding
feet like sharks.

At evening time
between lampposts and garbage
drums turned over in the wind
poverty is black ice
or a train whose departure you miss
whistling at you in the distance.

Your will is chalky on your tongue
like aspirin
and patience hangs like frayed
dreads down your back.

Morning bends
the scalpel-sharp pain
in the ribcage,
love’s sulfur-dazed eyes.

Two teabags in your wallet
for when the day is done 
and poverty at your feet 
like a hungry dog
laps up the sweat of your calves.

You come and go not speaking
fumbling for a ripcord
through a thousand leagues of wild wind.
Click on the file below to listen to the poem:
naomi_ayala_poverty_1.18.2022.mp3
File Size: 2181 kb
File Type: mp3
Download File

Picture
Naomi Ayala is the author of three books of poetry. Her most recent, Calling Home: Praise Songs and Incantations, was published by Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe. She’s also the translator of one novel and a poetry collection. She lives in Washington, DC.

0 Comments

Poem by Emily Vargas-Barón

2/22/2022

0 Comments

 
Hunger, Greed, and Pride
In honor of Hiram Larew

​Hungry children awaken, their cups so very empty
In all times, all places, and without fault
In crumbling cities and towns parched by sun and salt
Dreaming of honey, milk, and food aplenty

Hunger, Greed and Pride
Harbingers of poverty
Denying the poor their security
Onward, onward they stride.

They tell us that verdant valleys
Could feed ALL the world’s poor…
But why, oh why won’t
The Río Cauca feed South America?
The River Nile feed North Africa?
The Ganges feed South Asia?

Hunger, Greed and Pride
Harbingers of poverty
Denying the poor their security
Onward, onward they stride.

Latins, Africans, and Indians, hungry at dawn’s light
Forgotten, fearful and neglected
By autocrats, forever rejected
Condemned to a common, wretched plight.

Hunger, Greed and Pride
Harbingers of poverty
Denying the poor their security
Onward, onward they stride…

Picture
Emily is a “closet poet” who only writes poetry when she
cannot put her thoughts into any other form, and she rarely publishes her poems. She began writing poetry as a child alongside her father who was a noted professor of romance languages and literature. He bred in her a life-long love of poetry, the mathematics of poetry, and the music of poetry – that after all – are ultimately one and the same. She often watched him read poetry at home and on the banks of rivers, and she witnessed the joy it brought him.

​Emily’s life is much more prosaic. She leads an institute devoted to assisting countries in all world regions to build systems and services for early child development with the goal of helping every child to develop her or his inborn full potential. This poem speaks of her anguish over the plight today of millions of young children who needlessly experience hunger, disease and abandonment in societies that ignore them and with autocratic leaders who even disdain them.

0 Comments

Poem by Eric Forsbergh

10/3/2021

0 Comments

 
Kwashiorkor

Indigenous,
she stands in that alley still,
and always will, to my eye.
Naked, maybe nine,
her belly’s a swell of leaked fluids
around a shrunk stomach.
Misshapen knobs for knees and elbows.
A passing glance may catch her, just,
her slightest motion slow and thick.
Eyes glazed, expressionless.
What family forsakes its continuity?
Or will added food be set in front of sons?
A Mayan woman sits waiting,
almost at noon, stock-still on the curb.
Her face is a closed wound,
her husband a soiled rumple
in the parched gutter at her feet
sleeping it off.
Throughout this dry season
her demeanor’s caked in dust and ash,
her girl by now
another limp sparrow
impaled on a thorn by shrikes
as the volcano brews
its sullen cloud.
Click on the link to watch the video: ​Forsbergh Kwashiorkor - YouTube
Here is the link below for the poem about being up on the Mayan temple at night: 

​https://youtu.be/N2_iHR92DsE
Picture
Forsbergh’s poetry has appeared in JAMA, The Journal of Neurology, Artemis Journal, The Northern Virginia Review, Ponder Review, The Café Review, and several other venues, including as a placard on an Arlington County bus. A retired dentist, and a Vietnam veteran, he has participated in three medical missions in Guatemala and Appalachia, and has volunteered as a vaccinator against COVID-19 in Loudoun County, Virginia. He lives in Leesburg, Virginia, and is attending seminary part-time at The John Leland Center in the subject of social justice.   

0 Comments

Song by Evan Belize

9/30/2021

1 Comment

 
My African Food is a song written and performed by the musician Evan Belize (A.K.A. Evan A. Trapp). The video was filmed by Joan Dobbie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOK2ZmhgPIQ
Picture
Evan Belize created this song in honor of the 2008 WORLD FOOD DAY. As a boy in the Caribbean, he witnessed hunger first hand, and also in his travels. He’s been performing since his earliest youth in the 1970s. Over the years Evan has opened for, and performed with, many of the greatest Caribbean and African icons. For a time he had his own band, Earth Forces. Presently he hosts the EBLS Livestream Radio program on YouTube and takes his solo harmonica performances on the road, sharing colorful original arrangements with audiences world wide.

1 Comment

Poem by Joan Dobbie

7/5/2021

0 Comments

 
I found a kitten once

It was lying in a field
of ribs and twisted spine

I called the vet
and said I found a starving cat
what can I do?

Feed it, she said
I knew she was wrong.

The body changes
without food
and what once was food

becomes deadly
when death has got his grip
so tight

that hunger is no longer known

I knew
it would take something more

some special kind of food

to draw that fragile body once again
into the land of life

Something sweet & thin
like mother’s milk

which I had, in fact, back then
to feed my son
​
& so we shared
Picture
Joan Dobbie co-hosts the River Road Reading Series (RRRS)
<riverroadreadings.blogspot.com> presently on Zoom. She teaches Hatha Yoga at the
University of Oregon, and loves to share her poetry, which often seems confessional, and
sometimes is.

0 Comments

Poem by Grace Beeler

4/4/2021

1 Comment

 
Hunger

​It’s only in the last year, really

that I’ve allowed myself to think
about it – about
what it might have been actually like
There.
I’ve permitted myself
to read.
And once, late,
past midnight, to
view photographs
posted on the internet:
stark black and whites,
three of each person
one from each side,
one full front.
Although I was not
allowed
to stop and examine them closely, some
details were inescapable.
A woman’s wiry hair
matted into a halo around her
head as though she had
just been used to mop the
floor;
Fear, thinly
disguised as intellect,
peering shadowlike
though wire-rimmed spectacles;
Fear, bursting beneath a black silk
bosom. Fear in every eye
that catches mine.
They know.
They all know.
The photos I was looking for were not posted.
Perhaps there
was no time for foolery
and cameras on that day.
With each morsel of
knowledge I gain,
my hunger grows.
I’ve never been able to throw even
a potato skin away
but now the pots of
leftovers in the fridge
whisper insistently to me in the
night. I stumble into the kitchen not
an hour after dinner and
gorge myself on
cold pasta, congealed beans,
a sandwich with
questionable mayonnaise
which has been to a picnic at the river
and back and spent
a week in repose wrapped
in sandy tinfoil on the
second shelf, pink slices of
ham, the flesh tearing as
I hastily extract them from the plastic
encasing, explaining (as I push the soft
folds into my mouth)
to the
air
that it is allowable to
break kosher in cases of emergency.
The more I know, the
more I need to atone,
to stuff my gullet,
round my body into curves and
counter curves.
I’m doing it now, I
tell you. I’m eating a
bagel as I write, the seeds
dripping onto the
paper, cream cheese
smudging the corner
as I turn the page,
plate resting on the hill of my belly.
eating as if sheer gluttony were the antidote to
starvation. I bought half a
dozen this morning
and the three that
are left are calling
to me, plaintively
twining their poppy seeded fingers
through the razor wire,
begging.
Click on the file below to listen to Grace read her poem:
hunger_audio.m4a
File Size: 1213 kb
File Type: m4a
Download File

Picture
Filmmaker and poet Grace Beeler lives in Hillsborough NC. She is the director of After the Rain, an NGO which houses both the Appropriate Sanitation Institute and the Triangle Refugee Film Project. When she is not teaching ESL at Durham Tech Community College she spends her time advocating for refugees and cleaning up urban waterways in the developing world. ​

1 Comment

Poem by Margaret Brittingham

4/4/2021

0 Comments

 
She Came for Brisket but left with Ravioli

She came for brisket but left with ravioli, a bag of oranges and a loaf of bread
Disappointed to have her expectations dashed
Too late for the brisket and the hot buttery rolls --
But the warm ravioli soothed and comforted her soul.
Picture
Margaret Brittingham is a Professor of Wildlife Resources at Penn State University where she teaches ornithology and conducts research on birds.  She is part of a team that volunteers at the Community Café in State College, Pa, an excellent cooperative endeavor that provides weekly meals to the community. 
​  
This poem was inspired by an event that occurred in early February.  The café usually serves about 150 meals per night, but on this particular evening, the word was out that the café was serving brisket and homemade rolls.  Instead of the usual 150 meals, we had requests for 200 meals.  The rule for the café is  “If you think you might run out of food,... don’t”.  As we watched the brisket and rolls disappear, we pulled out the emergency supply of ravioli and cooked a delicious substitute meal for the late arrivals.  The next week, I attended the GLAG poetry session and was inspired to write this poem. 

​GLAG = Global Learning in Agriculture, an annual conference sponsored by Pennsylvania State University -- Global Learning in Agriculture Week | #GLAG21: Taking Action (psu.edu)

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  • Home
  • Hunger Poetry
    • 2021 World Food Day >
      • Poems Submitted for the 2021 World Food Day Poetry Competition
    • Poets Speak Back to Hunger
    • Now more than ever! >
      • Now more than ever: Submitted poems
    • 2020 WFD Poetry Competition >
      • 2020 World Food Day - submitted poems
      • 2020 World Food Day Poetry Competition announcement
    • World Food Day Poetry Competition 2019 >
      • World Food Day 2019 - Submitted Poems
    • World Food Day Poetry Competition 2018 >
      • WFD 2018 - Submitted Poems
    • Maryland Poets
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    • Videos
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  • 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
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  • Create
    • Prompts to help you get started
  • Contact/Submit/Take Action
    • Submission Guidelines
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    • Resources & Donations >
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