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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.
 

Haikus written in response to 2020 World Food Day Poetry Competition

10/26/2020

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World Food Day Oct 16, 2020...

We hunger for things

For freedom, respect...for peace
Why is food on list

Waking up hungry
Surviving not living means
Going to sleep hungry

Hungry children cry
Deafening is the clamor
We choose not to hear

Current tragedy
Capacity but no will
We could end hunger

Wake up and listen
Finding will will show the way
We will end hunger
Picture
Written by A.G. Kawamura, a third generation fruit and vegetable farmer and former Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture (2003 to 2010).

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Poem by Kari Gunter-Seymour

10/11/2020

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LEFTOVERS   
 
We do well. We feel safe.
We will not live life off-target.                                  
Let us bow our heads,
thankful for the fine-grained crust,
the yielding inner crumb.
The wine oaky, sweetened with song
trilled on angel food tongues,
we grow swollen as low-hanging fruit.
 
Out on the street, fallen
while no one was looking,
the nameless siphon sustenance
from their bones, hunched, rootless,
left to sizzle in the skillet,
so many futures fricasseed.
 
Out on the street children spin
despair’s fouled honey.
All our à la mode speeches,
our but for the grace quotes cannot
atone for the bounty uneaten,
tossed into dumpsters at end of day,
our legislators pickling the batter.
 
Out on the street a fairy godmother,
hell-bent for butter.
 
Unlike the fables–
cold porridge, toxic apples,
parents left with a sickly
succotash of choice–
she salvages second-day cuisine                    
via cherry red hatchback.
Hustles to rewrite stories,                  
one underpass,
one home delivery,
one meal-sized
biodegradable container
at a time.

First print: Sheila-Na-Gig

Picture
Kari Gunter-Seymour’s award-winning poetry collection is titled A Place So Deep Inside America It Can’t Be Seen (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions 2020). Her poems appear in numerous journals and publications including Verse Daily, Rattle, Main Street Rag and The LA Times. She is the founder/executive director of the Women of Appalachia Project and editor of the WOAP anthology series, Women Speak, volumes 1-6, a poetry workshop instructor, the 2020 Ohio Poet of the Year and Poet Laureate of Ohio. www.karigunterseymourpoet.com

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Poem by Glynn Axelrod

10/4/2020

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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. 
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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