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Hunger Poems

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 Jeffrey Banks

5/31/2019

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Only in America Can Extreme Poverty & Prosperity Co-Exist
Underlying Motives Benefit from Feeding the Most Vulnerable in Urban Cities
Really Cheap Food While Many Executive Directors Take Home Hefty Paychecks


Atrocities Happen Daily Caused by the Malnourishment of Food Insecurity
Creating A Disproportionate Amount of Diabetes, Hypertension & Obesity in Our Socioeconomic Centers
Taking a Moment to Ensure Fresh Fruits & Vegetables are in Tandem with Pre-Packaged Groceries
Inviting Neighbors in a Poorer Economic Bracket to Have More Nourishment in Their Diet
Obesity Increases When Refined Sugars, Simple Carbohydrates and Vitamin-Depleted Food Outweighs Nutrient-Dense Dietary Choices, Causing This Population to Eat More Junk Food to Get Energy
Spiking Glucose Levels and Sending Blood Pressure Up from the High Sodium in Pre-Packaged Food


American Cities Have an Abundance of Affluence, Yet Poverty Thrives as the Rich Can Profit Off of the Poor Resources Repurposed Can Allow Those Who “Don’t Have” to Do Better If Hunger Isn’t an Issue
Eating Nutritious, Healthier Food Improves One’s Cognitive Ability Allowing Kids to Learn & Adults to Earn


Opportunity Has Been Stolen by Those Throwing Away Food Not Spoiled, Unexpired & Fresh
Undermining Volunteers Who Can Be “Good Samaritans” to Thousands of Neighbors Homeless
Restaurants, Grocery Stores and Hotels Daily Dispose of the Food that Could Help Those Eat for Weeks


Feet Citizens Daily Try to Get Up On, Stand On & Walk On to Victory Fit the Shoes Many Don’t Understand Unctioning Intuition Can Allow Poorer Neighbors to Look for Work, Financial Opportunity & Stable Housing
Trying to Help Those Who Are Trying to Help Themselves is Better than Profiting Off of Their Misfortune
Under This Mentality, Executive Directors “Check a Box” for Every Patron Served Food & Offered a Bed
Rarely Do The “Bean Counters” Care Deeply about What Goes On in the Chronic Homeless Person’s Head
Every Person Who Exits “The System” is One Less “Guaranteed Paycheck” for Services from the Government


Zoom In on the Money Trail, I Have Seen Both Sides of This Situation...Volunteers are Loved as “Free Labor”
Except When You Fall on “Hard Times”...Then You are *Really* “One of Them” Walking in Their Shoes
Rushing to Hungry Neighbors’ Aid is Sometimes Made but Don’t Ask for a Job from Where You Volunteered
Oversight Wasn’t an Accident, Your Free Service Were Revered & You Might Threatened Their Livelihood


Help Others Without Expecting Anything in Return & Those Who Keep the Poor Down Eventually Learn
Umbrellas of Provision Can Help Friends Rebound Better Through Their Stormy Weather
No One Has to Go Hungry & Direct Services Can Bring Fresh Food to Poorer Neighborhoods By
Galvanizing Volunteers to Drive Food Trucks with Daily Stops, Deep Freezers to Preserve Perishable Food
Every Day a Rotation Can Help Those Who Struggle to See Better Days & The Giveaways Can Strengthen
Robustly for Villages to Thrive, Communities Will Become Alive If We’re Genuine & Not Contrived
 
World Food Day

​by Jeffrey E. Banks

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Jeffrey Banks, poetically known as "Big Homey" has had opportunities for his artist activism as an advocate against homelessness recognized nationally through presentations at universities, conferences and churches. His work in this arena has been recognized by notable figures such as Dr. Cornel West, Tavis Smiley, Richard Gere and NBA All-Star Allan Houston. In 2019, his poetry was featured in the National Association of Poetry Therapy Annual Conference and published in their anthology.

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Poem by Sherrell Wigal

5/31/2019

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Serve Rice in Everything
 
Poor, fuels the imagination,
allows us to make 5 children believe,
popcorn for dinner, 3 nights in a row, is a treat.
 
Hard-up pushes my sister to learn
15 ways to fix potatoes, and that
adding rice in everything makes it go further.
 
Broke drives a single mother’s
$40.00 car, which runs on gas
by the gallon and daily silent prayers.
 
Bad-off demands a space heater in only 1 room,
an open gas oven with nothing baking,
tattered quilts over multiple sleepers.
 
Penniless lives on the street corner hosting
the Viet Nam veteran, the crack addict, and the
lost one with a cardboard carton house.
 
Down-and-out dwells in an un-insulated, rented house
with mold so bad the cabinets can’t be used
and the shower cleaned before anyone gets in.
 
Poverty walks beside the woman with dreams
as rundown as the heels of her white,
$6.00 flats, sloshing through November sleet.

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Sherrell Runnion Wigal is a West Virginia, poet.  Her writing appears in many publications throughout the country, including, most recently, in Streetlight Magazine (Virginia), Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel (Kentucky), and Women of Appalachia Speak (Ohio).

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Poem by William Rivera

5/30/2019

1 Comment

 
Hunger down the Block
  
Michelangelo kicked his Moses in the knee
to make him move.  A kick in an empty stomach
took me home everyday summers:
canned tuna fish, mashed potatoes.  I wished for
more but ate whatever was dished out. 
 
Satisfied, I bit my lip to see my playmates
wrapped against the afternoon, their pools of septic fate,
and grew to know their upsurge, stealing food --
the upshot of their munching mouths,
their slow desire for any edible, half-eaten food
‘down the hatch,’  their laugher -- imagining
lives that swallow trout and sauerkraut.  
 
I post small gifts, drop coins in outstretched hands,
relive the fear, reflect what turns my stomach.

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William Rivera has three full-length books, and one chapbook, of poems: Buried in the Mind’s Backyard (Brickhouse Books, 2011): The Living Clock (a chapbook, Finishing Line Press, 2013); Noise (Broadkill River Press, 2015); and Café Select, with reproductions by Spanish/American artist, Miguel Conde (Poet’s Choice Publishing, 2016). In recent years, he has published in numerous literary magazines, including: Innisfree, Broadkill River Review, Raven’s Perch, The Broome Review, California Quarterly, Gargoyle, Recursive Angel, The Curator Magazine, Third Wednesday, Ghazal. Lit Undressed, Blazevox, The Pangolin Review, 2River Review, Loch Raven, Dual Coast Magazine, and others.

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Poem by Brenda Bunting

5/30/2019

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A Lady Yells Up and Down Minnesota Avenue I'm Hungry!
 
What does hunger look like?
I follow the steps of quiet children.
Their footprints weren't light or dancing.
Bare feet drag to an abyss of undernourishment.
Such big stomachs and tear-less crying,
This is what we have seen on television.
Staring at a world away we are deceived. 
By the perception of distance--
Hunger does not notice day or night.
It is the same a gray edge of pain unbroken.
The ailing wake slow and anguished,
To the daily promise of a starving nightmare,
Every sense of enjoyment is dull to life.
We work and drive and live in circles of luxury. 
The hungry world is not our fault.
The street corner looks are drug induced.
I can waste more money with fake charities.
We demand the freedom of un-involvement.
Justifying our apathy with cynicism, 
I indict myself more than I do you.
Emancipated hands of poverty's daughters,
Dig into earth looking for a heartbeat,
Of sustenance of nutrition gold,
To follow a garden line,
To a life line of full happiness,
With every kind of fruit and vegetable,
The rich soil of giving could offer up.
But the ground is tight and hard.
What is meat but imagination abounding.
The breath is a death stench most foul.
Babies are aware that they are dying.
They instinctively suckle at the air.
Wide eyes blinking, "Feed us!"
I ignore the lady yelling. I think she looks high.

(c) Brenda Bunting
Click on the file below to listen to Brenda reading her poem:
2021_04_18_15_19_56
File Size: 1925 kb
File Type: 2021_04_18_15_19_56
Download File

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Poet Brenda Bunting, she/her/hers is the author of “Poems of Love and Violence In Between Life and Death” 1st and 2nd editions on Amazon.com.  Brenda is published in numerous publications online and in print nationally and internationally. She is an insightful poetry workshop facilitator and spoken word artist with a passion for equality and racial, social, and environmental justice. Brenda is an active member of the Prince Georges County, MD poetry community. She is a life member of the Kentucky State Poetry Society and is working to complete her next books of poetry. Check out her artist page on Facebook at  https://www.facebook.com/pg/BDBpoet​

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Poem by Grace Cavalieri

5/29/2019

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WHO WE ARE
 
“The cry did knock/against
                        my very heart…”  The Tempest
 
When we do not feed the hungry children in Biafra
Looking at tourists, then we are the camera, staring.
If we do not take away their starvation, then
We are also the black marketeers who stole their food.
We are the karmic seeds of Viet Nam
Running ablaze with fire on our backs.
We’re the hummingbird flying the Atlantic in March.
We are Katrina because clothes were soaked, and when
There was no more food, when no help came,
We were the empty verbs.
These are the tears that come unbidden for Mozambique,
For starving children in the trees,
Waiting for rescue helicopters. All this,
When there were other possibilities.
Don’t you feel the heartbeat of the earth, the knob
We could turn? The magical tree we could put back in the rain forest?
Can you count the number of women sold to slavery we could wrap  
In warm cotton and bring back home? 
Riding an idea is like riding the wind
Unless we harness its lonely tumult, unless we give the fruits
Of the earth to open mouths and aching stomachs.
We are the rain on the cold hungry dog in the streets of Chile,
The disfigured man in prison, the mass deaths in Bosnia.
We are the shame of the soldier who thought he should
Die instead of his buddy. We are the broken clock of
The widows of war, their last dreams filled with absence.
If we are the ones who do not feed, comfort or save--
We are the grave. 
                                        
AFRICA

Children sitting in the dirt all in a row
Children sitting in the dirt
A row of children in the dirt
Tin cups in a row
Flies in the eyes of children
A row of children in the dirt
Children with big bellies 
Dear God what is the perfection in this?
That we see and still believe?

Click on the file below to listen to the poem:
mono-003.mp3
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​Grace Cavalieri is Maryland's tenth Poet Laureate. She's founder/ producer of "The Poet and the Poem" on public radio ,celebrating 44 years on-air, now produced at the Library of Congress. Her new poetry book is The Secret Letters of Madame de Stael (Goss pub. 2021).

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Poems by Michael Glaser

5/29/2019

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Hunger
 
Imagine the hungry
gathering late into the night
at the dumpster                   
behind Food Lion,
harming no one 
                            
then wish for each one
the trash bin of Van Gogh,
or Picasso or Monet, 
the sketches and canvases
they threw away. 
 
 Michael S. Glaser
 
                   
 Passing By
 
He held out a cup
and I reached
for some coins.
 
He scowled. 
 
“I thought you wanted some bread,”
I said, certain he was going to ask
for more than this easy lint from my pocket.
 
I looked into his eyes and suddenly
felt ashamed that I lacked the courage 
to offer something his heart could chew on,
 
something from the warm oven
of my comfortable life, something
he might inhale deeply like oxygen,
some genuine bread for the journey –
each slice an offering
to sweeten his life again.
 
 Michael S. Glaser

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Michael S. Glaser is a former Poet Laureate of Maryland from 2004 who has edited three anthologies of poetry, co-edited the Complete Poems of Lucille Clifton for BOA Editions, and published several award winning volumes of his own work, most recently, Threshold of Light with Bright Hill Publishing (2019).    More at www.michaelsglaser.com

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Hunger by Cliff Bernier

5/29/2019

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Hunger
 
Hunger for that which ought to be,
hunger for the blade of heaven,
the hedge of corn, the field of wheat,
the hand that reaches out to give,
and plant, and share, the root, the seed
of fertile ground, and quiet soil,
the face of love and common grace.
 
Cliff Bernier

Here is another poem by Cliff on PoetryXHunger website: https://www.poetryxhunger.com/now-more-than-ever-submitted-poems/poem-by-clifford-bernier

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Author of three books and two CDs, Clifford Bernier is a member of the Washington Writer’s Collection and has appeared on NPR’s The Poet and the Poem from the Library of Congress.  He lives in Northern Virginia.  ​

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Poem by Linda Dove

5/28/2019

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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
Click on the file below to listen to Linda read her poem:
linda_dove_recording.m4a
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​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!

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    Suggestions & Ideas

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  • Home
  • Art Auction to Alleviate Hunger
  • Hunger Poetry
    • Hunger Poems
    • World Food Day Poetry Competition >
      • 2021
      • 2020
      • 2019
      • 2018
    • Maryland Poets
    • International Poets
  • About
    • About the Initiative
    • Initiative Founder
    • Advisory Board
  • News & Blog
  • 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
    • Recent highlights
  • Contact/Submit/Take Action
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Call to Action
    • Resources & Donations >
      • Global resources
      • US resources
      • Maryland resources