Poetry X Hunger
  • Home
  • Hunger Poetry
    • 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
    • International Poets
  • About
    • About the Initiative
    • Initiative Founder
    • Advisory Board
  • News & Blog
    • Events
  • 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
  • Create
    • Prompts to help you get started
  • Contact us & Get involved!
    • Call to Action
    • Resources >
      • Global resources
      • US resources
      • Maryland resources

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.
 

Poem by Linda Dove

5/28/2019

0 Comments

 
Property Rights
 
We watch them on the news after supper,
the families made destitute by guns and fire,
whole villages fleeing torture and rape.
 
We observe them in health centers
as they cradle infants turned to bone,
as adult bodies wither, sag and stumble.
 
George Orwell down and out got it partly right.
He wrote, It is fatal to look hungry.
It makes people want to kick you.ᴵ
 
Kicking is fear expressed in hate and blame,
in the sense there’s not enough.
that our bellies too could flap like theirs,
hanker every hour for crusts.
 
Our greatest fear is lest we forget
to forget that we too are mortal,
that one day, sooner, later,
we too wither, stumble, die.
 
We prefer not to know that the luxuries
of our living—our money, homes and treasures--
are but arbitrary gifts of grace.
We do not own our bodies, let alone our stuff.
 
Accepting fully that I will die liberates me
from the urge to kick. But the next step
is the hardest: to feel free to share my supper
with the hungry, as though it were my last.
 
Linda Ankrah Dove
July 25, 2018
 
i George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London, 1933
Picture
Linda Ankrah-Dove’s career in development in the poorest countries of Africa and Asia inspires many of her poems. Her first book, "Borrowed Glint of Jade", was just published!
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Suggestions & Ideas

    Take a look at some of the writing prompts to get inspired!

    Archives

    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    May 2019

    Poets

    All
    A.G. Kawamura
    Anne Harding Woodworth
    Argos MacCallum
    Brenda Bunting
    Christopher T. George
    Cliff Bernier
    Debbi Brody
    Don Hamaliuk
    Ed Zahniser
    Eileen Trauth
    Elijah Pringle
    Gayle Lauradunn
    Glynn Axelrod
    Grace Beeler
    Grace Cavalieri
    Heather Banks
    Holly Wilson
    Jay Carpenter
    Jefferson Carter
    Jeffrey Banks
    Julie Fisher
    Kari Gunter-Seymour
    Kathamann
    Kim B Miller
    Kitty Cardwell
    Linda Dove
    Linda Trott Dickman
    Lindsay Barba
    Lisa Biggar
    Lynn Axelrod
    Martha E. Snell
    Michael Glaser
    Michael Minassian
    Milton Carp
    Naima Penniman
    Nan Meneely
    Philip Harris
    Robbi Nester
    Robert Fleming
    Sharon Anderson
    Sherrell Wigal
    Theresa Richard
    Vickisa
    William Rivera
    Zane Yinger

    RSS Feed

Copyright PoetryXHunger 2020
Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Hunger Poetry
    • 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
    • International Poets
  • About
    • About the Initiative
    • Initiative Founder
    • Advisory Board
  • News & Blog
    • Events
  • 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
  • Create
    • Prompts to help you get started
  • Contact us & Get involved!
    • Call to Action
    • Resources >
      • Global resources
      • US resources
      • Maryland resources