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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 Joan Dobbie

6/17/2024

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MY FATHER IN HEAVEN ON YOM KIPPUR

My Father has lived in Heaven
for what seems like an eternity

On earth
he was a good man
He gave food to the hungry

In Heaven
he is a good man still
But he has no food to give

In Heaven there is no time
There only is
It is always now

And now, in Heaven
Yom Kippur is

My Father is a good man 

Because it is Yom Kippur
he enters the synagogue of Heaven

He is fasting. It seems
he has been fasting forever
Nor does he take even one drop of water
to ease his thirst

My Father feels the gnawing of hunger
in his belly—the rasping in his throat
the pounding in his head

There is thunder, 
There is fire
The heavens are howling

In Heaven there is no time
Yom Kippur in Heaven
is now

The Heavenly congregation is 
huge — innumerable— the men, 

in the men’s section
draped in their heavenly blue and white 
prayer shawls

their heads, covered against the pain
of their hunger

their deep pain-filled voices chanting in unison
they rock and bow and moan

We have sinned
We have sinned
We have sinned

With clenched fists
they are pounding their hearts

They are praying to the tune
of the hunger of the world
They pray for the end of hunger

They pray for the life of the one
who is starving
Of the masses —- innumerable--
who are starving

whose bellies are bloated
whose skins thin as paper
whose eyes, still living, are growing dim

My Father is feeling the pain
of their starving
The Heavens resound with the pain
of their hunger

​Until they are fed
the sun will not set
on Yom Kippur
in Heaven

This poem first appeared in the Bards Against Hunger 10 Year Anniversary Anthology in 2023.

Click to hear the poet read the poem.
Picture
Joan Dobbie of Eugene, Oregon, born in Switzerland of Holocaust survivors, has a 1988 MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon. Joan is president of the Emerald Literary Guild in Eugene, co-hosts the WINDFALL reading Series and for nearly a decade co-hosted the River Road Reading Series (RRRS). She has been writing, teaching and publishing poetry, stories and Life Histories since 1981, has two well-grown children and six grands, ages 13-20. She teaches Hatha Yoga at the U of O and through the River Road Parks District.

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Poem by Joan Dobbie

7/5/2021

0 Comments

 
I found a kitten once

It was lying in a field
of ribs and twisted spine

I called the vet
and said I found a starving cat
what can I do?

Feed it, she said
I knew she was wrong.

The body changes
without food
and what once was food

becomes deadly
when death has got his grip
so tight

that hunger is no longer known

I knew
it would take something more

some special kind of food

to draw that fragile body once again
into the land of life

Something sweet & thin
like mother’s milk

which I had, in fact, back then
to feed my son
​
& so we shared
Picture
Joan Dobbie co-hosts the River Road Reading Series (RRRS)
<riverroadreadings.blogspot.com> presently on Zoom. She teaches Hatha Yoga at the
University of Oregon, and loves to share her poetry, which often seems confessional, and
sometimes is.

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    Suggestions & Ideas

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

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  • 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!
    • 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
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