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Why the Difference Café Brunch Menu We proudly use locally available ingredients. Prices may vary. *** Starts *** Fried Calamari with Peppered Remoulade or Salt Crackers, Lightly Crumbled *** Mains *** Steak Tartare with Couscous and Scallion Tapenade or Peanut Butter on Bread *** Accompaniments *** Haricot Verts with Toasted Coconut Flakes or Slice, American Cheese *** Sweets *** Glazed Seasonal Berries with Pistachio Macaroons or Chewing Gum *** Beverages *** Cinnamon Mocha Latte with Soy or Tap Water THEME: Stark differences in food availability. BIO: Hiram Larew founded the informal Poetry X Hunger initiative in 2017 as a way to bring two areas of interest – poetry and hunger prevention – together. Upon retiring from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where he helped guide international agriculture programs, he noticed that relatively little poetry about hunger was available. Believing in the power of poetry to touch hearts and minds, he launched Poetry X Hunger as a way to encourage poets to write about hunger.
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Hunger - After the announcement of USAID cuts Smell the food left in the harbor to rot. Even the frozen fast food. The sugar bits and bones they’ve thrown out at the end of their dinners. The starving starts in the pit of your stomach, moves to your heart. After you’d finally tasted artichokes, yogurt with the fat on the top, eaten real sun ripened tomatoes. After you’d peeled the onions, cut them up without crying, added them to a pot of stew with so much left over you could feed the world how did this happen? THEME: World Hunger  Karen Marker, an Oakland, California poet and a retired school psychologist whose writing has appeared in numerous anthologies and literary journals, including The MacGuffin, The Monterey Poetry Review, Slant, a Wordpeace, and New Verse News. Her first book of flash memoir/ poetry, Beneath the Blue Umbrella, was published by Finishing Line Press. You can find out more about her and her upcoming projects on her website. https://www.karenmarker.com/
Eighty Years Ago: The Passing “Mama, you are crying! Why are you crying? Why?” “Our neighbors with white hair Who loved you so… Who played with you…” “Yes, Mama, let’s visit them.” “They were found today. They were not moving. They were holding each other.” “What happened, Mama?” “They had no food. They were very proud. No one knew!” “Can’t they play with me, Mama?” “I am so sorry, my little one. They cannot hug you anymore. They cannot play with you ever again. Remember them, always.” And so, all my long life, I have remembered them And I miss them… THEME: Elder Hunger BIO: 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. This poem relates an experience of her childhood that haunts her to this day.
Ignored and Unfed I seriously do not know What is wrong with me? In my opinion A normal internalization And this is not called overdramatic Despite what most say Because I am deaf But not enough to realize How others truly perceive me With blatant ignorance Or an obsessive relentlessness To supersede me As much as possible Reactions usually go One way or the other And so it is unfortunate That we cannot seem to coexist Since we forget about our similarities For example, we speak I have a voice One so obnoxiously loud That it could be easily mistaken For a thunderstorm But with a human tune With less intention to bring havoc And instead more motivation To advocate for myself It is necessary Because without my mother How do I trust that anyone else knows me For me? She is the only person Who sees my potential And sees that I am The whole package As an individual who can Provide sweet banter And thoughtful advice And a timeless Sense of humor I am able to Provide all of this Even with a disability To me Speaking is living To at least try And put myself out In a world where I cannot easily belong in Where being a piece Of an incredibly tiny minority Has its downsides of invisibility Due to this One problem I persistently have On a daily basis Is hunger My plan for communication Almost backfires Since asking for meals Takes me An unreasonable amount of effort I am used to food insecurity But that does not mean I should accept it without complaint Whenever at restaurants I am sure to wail like a lengthy siren To communicate an emergency Of my stomach continuously grumbling Like a dormant volcano Soon to erupt If left unsatisfied Most waiters do this Because that are unfamiliar With sign language Which leaves them To depend upon others To face me instead But there is only so many individuals Involved in what seems to be Family-owned food businesses Along my home street That any request of mine Never gets fulfilled No lunch break between work Seems worth it No ridiculously bright red Marinara sauce To top a bowl of spiced spaghetti strands Or a neatly baked, but slightly charred Flatbread with hummus and pesto Which is still a scrumptious feast There is nothing much for me Which is why I must suffice With whatever is left in the office vending machine A few sugary, chocolately, and sometimes stale Energy bars are what I seek every afternoon Which is sustainable calorie-wise but these lack the nutrition value To maintain strength throughout the day And keep focus at a high Food accessibility is also difficult At grocery stores Transactions at the check-out line are awkward And most of the time The clerks lack the decency To even attempt and translate a message Using a black-ink pen and notepad That I am short in the cash Needed to pay for what I want This means I must drop everything And come back another day Maybe I will be lucky then But these type of interactions have repeated And so I remain unhopeful Of my ability to secure Even a sliver of a chicken thigh Or a plastic bag Of a few tomatoes and cucumbers Searching through my kitchen fridge At hours on end Is what my weekday evenings are about And it will remain this way If no one is willing to change And empathize with those Who need food and a decent meal Just as much as anyone else I seriously do not know What is wrong with me? In my opinion A normal internalization And this is not called overdramatic Despite what most say Because I am deaf But not enough to realize How others truly perceive me With blatant ignorance Or an obsessive relentlessness To supersede me As much as possible Reactions usually go One way or the other And so it is unfortunate That we cannot seem to coexist Since we forget about our similarities For example, we speak I have a voice One so obnoxiously loud That it could be easily mistaken For a thunderstorm But with a human tune With less intention to bring havoc And instead more motivation To advocate for myself It is necessary Because without my mother How do I trust that anyone else knows me For me? She is the only person Who sees my potential And sees that I am The whole package As an individual who can Provide sweet banter And thoughtful advice And a timeless Sense of humor I am able to Provide all of this Even with a disability To me Speaking is living To at least try And put myself out In a world where I cannot easily belong in Where being a piece Of an incredibly tiny minority Has its downsides of invisibility Due to this One problem I persistently have On a daily basis Is hunger My plan for communication Almost backfires Since asking for meals Takes me An unreasonable amount of effort I am used to food insecurity But that does not mean I should accept it without complaint Whenever at restaurants I am sure to wail like a lengthy siren To communicate an emergency Of my stomach continuously grumbling Like a dormant volcano Soon to erupt If left unsatisfied Most waiters do this Because that are unfamiliar With sign language Which leaves them To depend upon others To face me instead But there is only so many individuals Involved in what seems to be Family-owned food businesses Along my home street That any request of mine Never gets fulfilled No lunch break between work Seems worth it No ridiculously bright red Marinara sauce To top a bowl of spiced spaghetti strands Or a neatly baked, but slightly charred Flatbread with hummus and pesto Which is still a scrumptious feast There is nothing much for me Which is why I must suffice With whatever is left in the office vending machine A few sugary, chocolately, and sometimes stale Energy bars are what I seek every afternoon Which is sustainable calorie-wise but these lack the nutrition value To maintain strength throughout the day And keep focus at a high Food accessibility is also difficult At grocery stores Transactions at the check-out line are awkward And most of the time The clerks lack the decency To even attempt and translate a message Using a black-ink pen and notepad That I am short in the cash Needed to pay for what I want This means I must drop everything And come back another day Maybe I will be lucky then But these type of interactions have repeated And so I remain unhopeful Of my ability to secure Even a sliver of a chicken thigh Or a plastic bag Of a few tomatoes and cucumbers Searching through my kitchen fridge At hours on end Is what my weekday evenings are about And it will remain this way If no one is willing to change And empathize with those Who need food and a decent meal Just as much as anyone else BIO: Esha Kannan is a freshman at the University of California at Davis who is studying data science and passionate about advocating for underrepresented groups, especially neurodivergent individuals. She enjoys creative writing and she been recently into poetry as a way of self-expression and communication about issues she cares about most. In her free time, she loves going out in nature, meeting new people, and playing sports such as volleyball and ultimate frisbee.
How To Distract "about my grandma's village in the West Bank, it's been torched and olive and almond trees cut down these past few weeks…” —Naomi Shihab Nye on Facebook 1 A hard rain stripped the tender New azalea blooms Now a pale pink skirt Flattened on the ground. All I can think-- The three-year-old girl Wearing a pink dress. Blown in half. 2 Captive, I watch the massacre Like all of us, day after year After years, yet still feel a glimmer Of some small, hopeless Hope for peace before-- Before all the mass graves of barely shrouded skeletons overflow. And children, like a small galaxy of stars, sleep under rubble. All that light—buried. You, old friend, say the word is war. I say what I see—massacre. You Say I don’t know what I see; I’ve not read enough history. But what do women and small children Have to do with history. Or Mass Killing. Mass atrocity. Ethnic Cleansing, genocide, Crimes against humanity. Apocalypse. Then you support Hamas, you say. Nausea Like gravity all day, seeing Severed breasts tossed Like bloody rubber toys From man to man Laughing, as she dies. 3 They torched her grandmother’s village She says, olive and almond trees Cut down these past few weeks While you and I argued Legal definitions and debated Back to the Canaanites and a headline Read “How to Distract a Starving Child.” It’s the cheapest way to kill. The human heart shrinks. A muscle The body eats. You and I Claim, explain, accuse, defend While our hands smudge Blood on everything we touch And children are forced To eat their own hearts. This poem is from Chivas' completed manuscript of a second collection, Summertime in America, which features two groups of poems about the Israel-Hamas war. These poems strive to fathom the lived experiences of Israeli and Palestinian women. They also aim to eclipse politics, amplify multiple perspectives, avoid retraumatization in the telling, and speak to the unspeakable.  Chivas Sandage’s poems have appeared in the Texas Observer, Salmagundi, Southern Humanities Review, Soundings East, and The Long Now, among others. Her work won second place in the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2022 Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Contest. Sandage won the 2021 Claire Keyes Poetry Award for a group of eight poems. Her poetry column, Ms. Muse, has appeared in Ms. Magazine. Her first book, Hidden Drive (Antrim House), was a finalist for the Foreword Book of the Year Award in poetry.
On Receiving an Email Forward Containing Kevin Carter's Pulitzer Prize Winning Photograph and a Plea for Gratitude are gratitude and hunger linked? would the focus and faithfulness of a monk who thanks god with every breath relieve starvation? and is such thankfulness possible in this sphere of excess? perhaps i should deprive myself to achieve constant gratitude, because even the memory of hunger, mild though it was--like the third-grade day i went to the school nurse, my stomach an ache of emptiness--does little for the woman who never has to worry if she forgets her microwave lunch, her office flanked by restaurants, her credit cards eager to stand in for a depleted atm. of course going to the nurse for hunger is a luxury, knowing this you know the child knew the hunger wouldn’t last– believed, at least back then, in the system. so you know the girl was lucky, but even still . . . . if i drew a picture of that girl-- her belly aching--every morning before i left the house, sketching in the kids at school calling her anorexic, laughing, if i said ‘thank you god for this food’ before i took a bite of anything, the way some people do, would the famine-stricken countries prosper? would any person live a single minute longer, would one child’s ascites begin to heal? the boy in Kevin Carter’s picture did not suffer from our lack of gratitude. some other sickness weakened him for the vulture’s pleasure. i won’t disclaim my part in it or pretend to know its name. and when Carter killed himself three months later, that wasn’t lack of gratitude either, though some might call it that. even if i understood in the midst of the traffic jam, the flu, the break-up, how lucky i am, what could i possibly make of it except that the world is unfair? and wouldn’t it be odd to thank anyone for such deplorable excess? This poem was previously published in Knock Journal.  Ann Tweedy's full-length book, The Body's Alphabet, earned a Bisexual Book Award and was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. She has three chapbooks: Beleaguered Oases, White Out, and A Registry of Survival. Ann has been nominated three times for Pushcart Prizes and five times for Best of the Net Awards. As her day job, she serves as a law professor.
Hunger I was born in the City of Dead and died in the River of Children. I am the infant smashed on the wall. The kitchen is verboten! The killers are insatiable for kalashnikovs. Peshmerga, blood chief, my father. Gulag, my mother, dirt soup. I am yellow fever’s young boy run wild in poppy fields, scorched. My broken finger, am I to blame? My little cowlick?  Mary Meriam studied poetry at Columbia University (MFA) and Bennington College (BA). She works as an editor and publisher of lesbian poetry and art, and teaches in the MFA program at the University of Arkansas. Her most recent poetry collection is Pools of June (Exot Books, 2022). Her poems have appeared in Literary Imagination, Literary Matters, Poetry, Post Road, Prelude, Rattle, Subtropics, and The Poetry Review.
The Truculent Visitor © 7/1/2022, J. Joy “Sistah Joy” Matthews Alford He paid me a visit again today. Didn’t knock on the door Or ring the bell. Just came right in. Made himself at home. I tried to extend the courtesy of politeness Despite his rude rumbling sounds. Asked if he had someplace else he needed to be. Surely he could see my fine table setting. I had plans …was expecting guests. But he, who had no use for such fantasies, Reached up, snatched my delicate doilies And linen napkins right off the table. Threw my fine china to the floor, Then reached deep inside me. Grabbed and twisted my gut Filling me with searing pain No living soul should ever have to know. So here I sit on the floor Between shards of shattered plates Scattered beneath my trashed dining room table. I glance into my kitchen at once-filled pantry shelves And eye the equally empty refrigerator While squeezing my arms around my grumbling waist. Tears stream down my face As I try to comprehend How this has become my reality.  Sistah Joy is the Prince George's County, Maryland Poet Laureate Emerita (2018-2023), and president of the Ebenezer A.M.E. Church Poetry Ministry in Fort Washington, Maryland. She has authored three collections of poetry and has served as Producer and Host of the cable TV show, Sojourn with Words, since 2005.
Marrow When headaches plague, and threaten teetering blindness I either acknowledge pollen the culprit or promise to clean filters for I am intimately familiar with being too tired to dust. When a roaring sound overtakes my ears and everyone nearby hears I either acknowledge or look straight ahead for I am intimately familiar with its source. When limbs seem to fumble , and my mobility’s challenged function is noticed I either acknowledge tripping or pretend that “muscles fell asleep” for I am intimately familiar with its cause. When irritability rages and becomes my response to a callus world I either acknowledge your intentional ignorance of my circumstance or swallow excuses that your center stage is fully booked for I am intimately familiar with such scheduling. When I can’t make enough saliva to taste “What’s That Soup?” I either acknowledge that the weather isn’t numbing cold or I haven’t enough self-generated heat to ward off diseases I am more susceptible to succumb to I am intimately familiar with such gnawing When sleep disallows dreaming and screaming hasn’t any strength because knowledge of diminishing reserves rarely has an outlet. When sound becomes bold and my knocking knees can’t my body hold. When you know I need yet withhold, I taste the marrow of my bones. DMW Fiction, thank God. BIO: Diane is a New Yorker of West Indian heritage—a former dancer, choreographer, and radio blog talk host. She is TESORO; visit the gallery artist/poet page at: www.firesingers.com.
SUMMER end of June, every year, our dining table was fragrant, wet, on old newspapers a litter of linden flowers the tea is soothing to the nerves, we were told to ward off colds in the winter, for us kids no one read the news those days... promised for a future time, in the kitchen, under mountains of sugar sweet peaches boil the summer away. on counters rows of empty jars, glistening clean like winters, barren and harsh those days... my grandfather’s tree was laden with red glory its canopy opened wide over the neighbor’s yard I’d climb and reach over the fence, a scrawny kid along the rough bark. I cherished that harsh embrace, no tomorrow on the heavy branches, just me sharing the boon my little brother doubtful, looking up, his smile dripping cherries those days... before the cold set in, every day, we would make the line in the vegetable market back then, each kid counted at food lines, our makeshift cart waiting for us around the corner us kids full of questions why potatoes, why now what will we say is it 10 kg for 20 lei, or is it 20 kg for 10 lei why do we have to whisper why do we have to run why are they chasing us linden trees still line our street the years gone, the summers, those days... promised away Romania, 80’s  Mona is a professor of mathematics who has discovered her passion for poetry late in life. Currently she is enrolled in a MFA program in Creative Writing at CCNY-CUNY.
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