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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 Anne Harding Woodworth

12/15/2020

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FAMINE
​

    . . . the body is dyed
    by illness like a piece of cloth
    by an extraneous color.
            —W.G. Sebald

The dyer makes the linen
a deeper color of dug earth,
boils it in water with acacia
until the natural mole’s-back gray-tan
becomes peat-bog purple.

The well-fed lord is not pleased
with the linen’s new color
and wants it changed back.
The dyer replies that once a beginning unfolds,
recovery of what was is not possible.

And he feels helpless walking home that night
to his beyond-hungry child.
On a cot she lies fevered,
her hair fallen out, her mouth without saliva.

Transports come by every evening
to gather the dead, and they jostle
over the river to a far-from-town field,
where blackened by illness tubers also rest.

The dyer lies down next to his daughter,
and while she sleeps,
he tries to solve the undyeing of a piece of cloth.

from Anne Harding Woodworth,
Up From the Root Cellar, Cervena Barva Press, 2006


Click on the link below to listen to Anne read her poem:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/96j6z8srj1rrsg8/Woodworth%E2%80%94Famine.m4a?dl=0
Picture
Anne Harding Woodworth, author of
a sixth book of poetry, The Eyes Have It,
with a seventh, Trouble, coming in late 2020.

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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