Poetry X Hunger
  • Home
  • About
    • About the Initiative
    • Initiative Founder
    • Recipients and Donors
  • Hunger Poetry
    • e-Collection
    • Hunger Poems
    • World Food Day Poetry Competition >
      • 2021
      • 2020
      • 2019
      • 2018
    • Maryland Poets
    • International Poets
  • ART
    • ART Inspired Poems
  • News & Blog
  • Young Poets
    • Poems by Young Poets >
      • West Side Campaign Against Hunger
    • 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 >
      • Global resources
      • US resources
      • Maryland resources

Hunger Poems

You are encouraged to read the poems posted here from national poets 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 Lissa Perrin

6/26/2023

0 Comments

 
Why I Like Ketchup

It’s hard to pay attention
to what’s on the board, to care
that three times seven is twenty-one,
that our state bird is a robin or
that I’m supposed to say isn’t, not ain’t.
All I can think about is my empty belly,
and the smell of boiling hot dogs.
I’m so hungry, I hurt.

It’s my favorite school-lunch day, though.
The ʼdogs are good, but
those little ketchup packages
make it the best for me.
I like the tiny crackers in cellophane bags
when we have chili, too,
but they get smashed up too fast.
Ketchup packs travel better in my pockets.

I take as many as I can get, before the lunch lady,
Mrs. Penny, with that net thing on her head,
gives me the eye. I have to put some back.
She’s cool though. Sometimes she’ll slip me
an extra apple, a bag of chips or a cookie, secret-like.
My friend takes some extra ketchup packs for me, too.
He knows I like them. He never asks me why.
And I never tell him, ʼcause that hurts my belly, too.

Mrs. Penny said once that some old white guy
said ketchup was a vegetable. He sure was dumb
even if he was the President. Even a third grader
knows that ketchup comes from tomatoes
and that tomatoes are fruit.
I don’t know about mustard though.
Maybe it’s a vegetable.
Whatever it is, you can have it.

​On the bus home I open one ketchup packet.
Squeezing the thick sweetness into my mouth,
I let it sit a minute on my tongue
before it slips and slides down my throat.
Only one. That’s my rule ʼcause it’s getting near the end
of the month. It’ll make supper taste better for me and Mama.
All we’ve got left is stale bread that’s pretty hard
to swallow and tomorrow’s Saturday.
Picture
Lissa Perrin is a retired clinical social worker from Ann Arbor, MI. She is a co-host of the Crazy Wisdom Poetry Circle cwcircle.poetry.blog and is grateful to have had a number of her poems published.
0 Comments

Poem by Ashlynn Doljac

6/24/2023

2 Comments

 
Metabolic Memory
When my stomach is so empty that it churns your name, 
I cover my mouth-only to realize that the sound is incontestable, 
coming from the depths of me.
A guttural echo squeezing sad memories through kidneys, 
but no filtration system can distill you- or flush out the toxins. 
We are the science experiment gone terribly wrong, 
abandoned etch-a-sketch on trees, 
the Pandora's box I don’t dare open, 
hidden in the basement of my mind’s corridors. 
When my stomach is so empty that it churns your name,
I begin to nibble on remnants of you. 
The times I thought I was in love with your Cheshire smile and angular nose,
but I was really just dancing with my own darkest shadow, 
sinking the ship and biting the dust.
I was only craving a cool glass of attention paired along with a heaping bowl of belonging. My stomach doesn't speak English, and thus I have become illiterate to its primal cries. Twists and knots of you are seeking some sort of indecipherable plea for an exit, an escape. Like closing the door with a heart trembling in the throat only to be picked off the branch. 
I was low hanging fruit, and you were the gardener. 
The snakes warned you not to pick me, but you did and now look at the mess behind us.
I have become an arsonist, burning down the bridges we used to stroll on. 
My darling, I am no sweet apple, my core is bitter and skin tougher than steel. How you managed to seep in through the layered amour I could never understand. 
But you see, when my stomach is so empty it churns your name, 
and instead of feeding the fire inside of me, I vomit. 
Words on the page and paint to the canvas, flame to the match and foot through the door
I run. And run and run and run, and just when my legs could splinter in half,
I draw your profile in the dark with a frenzy of fireflies, over and over and over. 
I draw your profile until I can’t remember what you look like anymore.
I draw your profile and the churning simmers; 
I draw your profile until you fizzle and fade from view. 
I run back to the place I once called home, and this time,
when my stomach is so empty
it churns for a different kind of love. 
One that might finally let me feel full. 
-A
Picture
Ashlynn is a multi-disciplinary artist, spoken word poet, and dreamer, who recently won 1st place as a finalist at the Guelph and Toronto Poetry Slams, and has several solo exhibitions around the GTA. Her work centres on the notion of humans as storytellers, by creating a sense of embodied art-making connected to the earth. For Ashlynn, art is a vehicle to transport, translate, and transform ideas of life, love, loss, and finding her voice through imaginative avenues.
​Website: ashlynndoljac.format.com
Instagram: @artistic_allegories
Youtube: @ashlynndoljac1318

2 Comments

Poem by Ellen Rowland

6/11/2023

0 Comments

 
Fast

If you were to ask me about hunger
I would tell you it's like being held 
in empty arms for too long, purse
strings tightened at the parched mouth
drawn closed on unmet needs. 
Thirst is a dry river bed, a dead cricket's leg, 
trough of dust, fat snowflake 
uncaught by young tongues.
And after the deep well 
no longer cares what it might hold,
at the first bite, the first sip
the animal need to take all
not to taste, but to fill,
not to quench, but to flow.
But what do I know
of real hunger, true thirst?
If I could pack it up, I'd send it–
the wasted corporate buffet,
the bottled waterfall. 
I swear, I would send it to you.
Fast, I'd fast.
Picture
Ellen Rowland is the author of two collections of haiku/senryu as well as the book Everything I Thought I Knew, essays on living, learning and parenting outside the status quo. Her writing has appeared in numerous literary journals and in several poetry anthologies, most recently The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection and Joy. Her debut collection of full-length poems, No Small Thing, is forthcoming from Fernwood Press in 2023. She lives off the grid with her family on an island in Greece. Connect with her on Instagram @rowland.ellen

0 Comments

    Suggestions & Ideas

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

    Archives

    June 2025
    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    July 2021
    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
    Aaliyah El-Amin
    A.G. Kawamura
    Alan Barysh
    Amanda Conover
    Amelia Díaz Ettinger
    Anne Harding Woodworth
    Argos MacCallum
    Ashlynn Doljac
    Bill Batcher
    Blair Ewing
    Brenardo
    Brenda Bunting
    Brian Manyati Aka Towandah Ryan
    Bruce E. Whitacre
    Cathy Warner
    C.C. Arshagra
    Ceredwyn Alexander
    Chip Williford
    Christina Daub
    Christine Hickey
    Christopher T. George
    C. John Graham
    Cliff Bernier
    Crystal Rivera
    David Dephy
    Debbi Brody
    Deborah Diemont
    Dee Allen
    Don Hamaliuk
    Dorothy Lowrie
    Dr. Vaishnavi Pusapati
    Duane L Hermann
    Duane L Herrmann
    Ed Zahniser
    Eike Waltz
    Eileen Trauth
    Elise Power
    Elizabeth Farris
    Ellen Rowland
    Emily-Sue Sloane
    Emily Vargas-Barón
    Eric Forsbergh
    Evan Belize
    Gary D. Grossman
    Gayle Lauradunn
    Geoffrey Himes
    Gloria Valsamis
    Glynn Axelrod
    Grace Beeler
    Grace Cavalieri
    Heather Banks
    Hedy Habra
    Holly Wilson
    Ishanee Chanda
    Jacqueline Jules
    Jay Carpenter
    Jay Carson
    Jean Liew
    Jefferson Carter
    Jeffrey Banks
    Jeffrey Engels
    Jess Perkins
    Joan Dobbie
    Joanne Durham
    Joseph Mukami Mwita
    J R Turek
    Judy Kronenfeld
    Juliana Schifferes
    Julie Fisher
    Kalpna Singh-Chitnis
    Kari Gunter-Seymour
    Kari Martindale
    Karina Guardiola-Lopez
    Kathamann
    Kelley White
    Ken Holland
    Kimberly Sterling Penname-River Running
    Kim B Miller
    Kitty Cardwell
    Kitty Jospé
    Kristina Andersson Bicher
    Laura McGinnis
    Lee Allane
    Lee Gill
    Linda Dove
    Linda Trott Dickman
    Lindsay Barba
    Lisa Bennington-Love
    Lisa Biggar
    Lissa Perrin
    Lynn Axelrod
    Lynn White
    Maggie Bloomfield
    Margaret Brittingham
    Margaret R. Sáraco
    Margarette Wahl
    Margot Wizansky
    Marianne Szlyk
    Marianne Tefft
    Martha E. Snell
    Marti Watterman
    Mary Ellen Ziegler
    Mary Meriam
    Megha Sood
    Michael Glaser
    Michael Minassian
    Mike Dailey
    Milton Carp
    Mona Zamfirescu
    Naima Penniman
    Nancy Murray
    Nan Meneely
    Naomi Ayla
    Naomi Grace
    Natalie Diaz
    N Chamchoun
    Neal Grace
    Paulina Milewska
    Philip Harris
    Pramila Venkateswaran
    P. S. Perkins
    Q.R. Quasar
    Rick C. Christiansen
    Robbi Nester
    Robert Fleming
    Ron Shapiro
    Sandeep Sharma
    Sean Sutherland
    Sharon Anderson
    Sharon Waller Knutson
    Sheila Conticello
    Sherrell Wigal
    Sistah Joy Alford
    Susanna Rich
    Susan Scheid
    T. A. Niles
    T.A. Niles
    Theresa Richard
    Tom Donlon
    Vickisa
    Vincent J Calone
    V.j.calone
    Wayne Lee
    William Rivera
    Zane Yinger
    Zinnia

    RSS Feed

Copyright Poetry X Hunger 2024.
Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • About
    • About the Initiative
    • Initiative Founder
    • Recipients and Donors
  • Hunger Poetry
    • e-Collection
    • Hunger Poems
    • World Food Day Poetry Competition >
      • 2021
      • 2020
      • 2019
      • 2018
    • Maryland Poets
    • International Poets
  • ART
    • ART Inspired Poems
  • News & Blog
  • Young Poets
    • Poems by Young Poets >
      • West Side Campaign Against Hunger
    • 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 >
      • Global resources
      • US resources
      • Maryland resources