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Picture from Somalia The eyes of a child who is starving to death have already died of expecting what never arrives. They hold a knowing language cannot shape. of what a wasting body tells. How shall I write of this beautiful boy when all I have is words? I look for something I could name as fear, fear of death, perhaps. But his has been a dying every day, as natural to him as breathing in and out. I can’t see hopelessness but maybe there was never hope to lose. If there is grief for what is not, it can’t be named, but maybe there has never been a plenty to regret. The rage that must be part of what consumes him hides. Perhaps it’s dammed behind the eyes gone dull with brute monotony of nothing to be done. I can’t see in. I cannot look away. I cannot look away although I’m sometimes hungry not to know. Writing the Unthinkable The reporter gnaws his knuckle, as she speaks. He tries to write a picture of her children, boy and girl, not old enough to spell their names. They stand on either side of her, tee shirts worn so gauzy with their handing down they don’t disguise the sharp protrusion of a shoulder bone. Odd, he thinks, the boy, the bigger child, leans into her, encircles her with both his arms. The girl is steady on her feet, defies his sympathy and gives no quarter with her gaze. His jottings fill a page: covid riding visitors into the houses huddling cheek by jowl; barefaced brownstones muffling tragedy as anger grows; children escaping to spill down stoops in search of play forbidden many months; soup kitchens running out of soup. He can’t do anything to right the year but write. It makes him cry but he will start his story with the question she has thrust at him at last: “How do I choose which child to feed today?”  Nan Meneely is a Connecticut poet whose career in teaching and training culminated in twenty years with the Federal Emergency Management Agency where she managed programs in support of disaster response and recovery. Her first publication, Letter from Italy, 1944, was noted by the Hartford Courant as one of thirteen important books by Connecticut writers in 2013. Her second book, Simple Absence, published hours before the pandemic reached American shores, was nominated for the National Book Award.
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I Went Hungry Once when I spent all of my money on vintage earrings in New York City. It was a Sunday, Western Union was closed, so my dad couldn’t wire me any emergency cash. It was hard to recognize myself or the city that now taunted me-- the redolence of hot pretzels, peanuts, and gyros on every block now torture. Money oozing from limos and fancy threads mocking me in my misery, the distance unapproachable. And, later, in my dorm room, after the others went to bed, I felt like Jean Valjean, desperate and alone, raiding the shared fridge, a Tupperware container marked for someone else. Here is a video of Lisa reading the poem: 
 Lisa Lynn Biggar received her MFA in Fiction from Vermont College and is currently completing a short story cycle set on the eastern shore of Maryland. Her short fiction and poetry have appeared in numerous literary journals including Main Street Rag, Bluestem Magazine, The Minnesota Review, Kentucky Review, The Delmarva Review and Superstition Review. She’s the fiction editor for Little Patuxent Review and co-owns and operates a cut flower farm on the eastern shore of Maryland with her husband and three cats.
Gleaning Lining up at the food bank, neighborly encounters. I drop off pancake mix, cold sausage, chocolate milk from our fundraiser, cancelled in Covid-time. Homeless men and women on downtown streets so long pantry workers greet them as friends in strange vicinity, not entirely strangers, not completely local. Housed locals enter quietly depart quickly or accept offers for door-step delivered meals. A woman not far mails surgical masks to her roofless brother by way of a local knowing his creekside camp. Is a mendicant holding a bowl on pilgrimage less hungry than a roofless man with family keeping distance? Finger-ping of the bowl is a bell, attention to the virtue of less. Roofless man is attended by his own practical credo. In Paris, passing a child holding out her hand to a crowd rushing up a Metro staircase, woman beside her weary. Wrong train, running back down deserted steps in time to catch the woman berate the empty child. Picking these words for thought, not work, leaves me wanting more, an eater of other courses and meals to give instead of memory. Lynn Axelrod is a community organizer in her home area, a northern California coastal village. She’s been a reporter for a weekly newspaper, an environmental NGO staffer, and an (early-retired) attorney. She has an undergraduate degree in literature, pursued graduate lit. coursework while teaching freshman courses, and has studied with several well-published poets. She continues reading literature, poetry, history, and current affairs. Her work has appeared in several journals, in print and online.
Crossed a Line And what was this great sin I committed? I crossed a line I couldn’t see it, but it was there Nature didn’t make it, But they knew where it was They arrested me and put me in a cell They took my children away Even though they cried and screamed, And all I could say to them Was that it will be all right When I really didn’t know Just because I crossed a line, They held me in detention, It was cold in there The food was bad, They said if I promised to go back I could have my children again They said I crossed a line And they were going to make it hard To stay on this side Most cases don’t get approved Some of the guards raped me, They said I didn’t deserve to stay here, They said I should go back to where I came from I crossed a line And they put me in a refugee camp, Gave me just enough Food and shelter to survive, I still linger here Not able to go forward But I can’t go back Because I’d be killed by the gangs, Because rebel groups are carrying out Genocide against my people, Because severe drought has made it impossible To grow any crops where my tribe lives, Because the city where I lived Has been bombed to oblivion I would never have lasted long Where I was, So what choice did I have? I had to cross a line To see if I could find any justice in this world Right now I’m riding in a rickety boat In choppy waves, no life vest Across open sea Praying that we’ll make it to land Right now its midnight and I’m walking Through the desert with a few others like me, Not knowing when our coyote might abandon us, Or whether we’ll run out of water Right now I’m riding in a refrigerator truck Packed in with twenty others, There’s no light And it’s getting hot Right now I’m packing what I can carry Preparing to leave everything behind I’ve ever known, I know I might get robbed along the way, I know I might get beaten up, I know I might run out of money, I know I might go hungry, I know I might go thirsty, I know I’ll be cold sometimes, I know it’ll be too hot sometimes, I know I’ll be rained on, I might even die, But what choice do I have? I have to try To cross that line  Holly Wilson is a retired professor who lives on a small farm outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she has been active in the poetry scene for many years. She has published one book of poetry, Assorted Snapshots, and she hosts the monthly Tortuga Gallery Open Poetry Reading.
America, My Name Is Hunger Bless me father for I have sinned. My name is Hunger. I am ancient. I am birthed from Greed. I am today and tomorrow. My name is Hunger. I live on the streets. I live hidden in the suburbs. I live in factories and on farms. I live In Oregon. A family of eight go to a food bank, receiving blocks of cheese and sacks of oatmeal. At home they feed the oatmeal to their rabbits. They breed the rabbits for meat. They know Hunger, he is a cousin, he breeds resignation and despair. The youngest child is five. When asked about her dreams, innocent wide eyes query, “What is a dream?” Hunger is greedy. He leaves no room for dreams. My name is Hunger. I live on the streets. I live in cars. I live under bridges. I live in the North. The wrenching cry of loons is challenged by the wailing of dogs forced to eat their brothers. They mourn the disaster of being born. They mourn the skeletal humans unable to provide sustenance. They mourn the heroics and loyalty they have rendered. Isaiah tells me he once would feed his whole family for a week, on one swan. Then, the white man came, bringing senseless death to hundreds of thousands for their bloodstained feathers. Now, the swans are protected. My children are named Hunger, says Isaiah. They live in the alleys. They live in the jails. They live in the brothels. In the cities, young and old emaciated citizens with pinpoint opioid pupils are the offspring of pharma greed. The offspring of Hunger. A thin young man with outstretched claw approaches, he says don’t you know me? My name is Hunger and I am your son. I live In Seattle and in Brooklyn in Huston and in Detroit. I live on the streets. I live on the reservations. I live in the ghettos. I live in the suburbs. I live in factories and on farms. I am your child, your parent your tomorrow. Click on the file to listen to Theresa read her poem: 
 Theresa Richard retired from a career as an editor to live in Ireland and embrace life as a
writer of poetry and short stories. She worked for Breakwater Books in Newfoundland; Fitzhenry and Whiteside, Toronto; the Canadian Government, Mobile Oil, and the Daily Journal (US Appellate Court Cases), she was the Editorial Director at the Center for Civic Education in Los Angeles, editing law-related education text books. Born and raised in NYC, she has also lived and worked in Alaska, Newfoundland, Montreal, and briefly in Ecuador, places that provide landscapes for her creative writing. REMEMBER THE STARVING ARMENIANS In my mother’s kitchen food was weaponized plates piled high with pilaf tomatoes, chicken, and lamb. Remember the starving Armenians, my mother said. History sat down at the table with us; our lost family kept alive half a century later In Northern New Jersey, Long Island, and the Bronx. During the First Genocide of the Twentieth Century, America sent ships full of food, nurses, and nuns to the Mediterranean; posters hung in town squares and full-page ads appeared in the New York Times: Remember the starving Armenians A million and a half dead, another million scattered around the world. But I had to finish my dinner no matter how full I felt and if any scraps remained on our plates my mother stood at the kitchen sink and licked each one clean – our kitchen at least one place on earth we ate for the empty places we ate for the dead.
 MICHAEL MINASSIAN is a Contributing Editor for Verse-Virtual, an online magazine. His chapbooks include The Arboriculturist (2010) and Around the Bend (2017). His poetry collection, Time is Not a River, (2020) is available on Amazon. A second poetry collection entitled Morning Calm and a chapbook Jack Pays a Visit are also forthcoming in 2020. For more information: https://michaelminassian.com
Here is a video of Diane Wilbon Parks who expresses her concerns about the state of hunger. Click here to watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJXsVnDqXvw
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