Poetry X Hunger
  • 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

Hunger is a worldwide scourge. 
​This section includes poems recently written by poets from around the world.   

Poem by Zolisa Gumede

6/25/2019

2 Comments

 
Used to be
The growl of my anger
Was always louder than
the growl of my stomach
But not today
He looks at me in fear and wonder
This stranger at the terminus, must be thinking,
why is she so angry 
is she that hungry? 
My stomach was shaming me.

I smile in apology
I'm just tired, I suppose
But I'm truly just hungry, I know
Used to be
A working woman could eat
Used to be
A working woman could sustain herself
Used to be
A working woman never got into stupid fights with strangers
Just for the reason they were eating and she hadn't in almost a whole day
Used to be
Usisi osebenzayo (a working woman)
Would better spend her daydreams on futures of success instead of a good meal
Okay 'a good meal' was too much dreaming
"Maybe just some bread"
All that was gone now
What used to be had changed.

What is, is her hunger equaling to her anger.
It’s the scraping at her stomach
Leaving a hot and acid pain in her tummy
Making her wish she didn't have a bloody stomach
The uncontainable panicked confusion of her mind
As her brain tries to reason out why the body is going for so long, unfed
The rising rage of emotion as she tries to convince herself to be at peace with the lack in her stomach
The hot anger that arises when she thinks how 
It used to be at such moments she would go buy a scone
Oh wait, all that used to be, is gone.
We are talking about now.

Now,
Going home
She remembers
The day she spent trying to not look at others eat
And anticipates
The night she'll spend
Try to find sleep
After a supper that's
Too ugly, too small, too unsatisfying
To wash from memory the past day's hunger
Tomorrow she wouldn't go to work
How could she manage to
So hungry
I mean working all day without sustenance
But not going would mean being fired
Sitting at home to starve
To watch children turn from thin and scrawny to just ribs and bone
One works, one can't eat,
Nor can her family, her kids,
Used to be
She could feed them just cause she worked
All that's gone now
Click on the file below to listen to Zolisa reading her poem:
used_to_be_final.m4a
File Size: 1861 kb
File Type: m4a
Download File

Picture
Zolisa Gumede is a Zimbabwean poet and story writer from the city of Bulawayo. She is driven by a passion for giving life to stories that speak for the lives of everyday heroes, the marginalized and all human beings, for we all need a witness to our lives. She loves a good laugh and a good story.
​

2 Comments

Poem by Takudzwa Chikepe

6/25/2019

1 Comment

 
Hunger’s Curriculum Vitae
Hunger
Is communication
That something is wrong
With our way of thinking
Either we have to solve
It or we will perish
Away with it!

The stomach
Knows no boundary
When it comes to swallowing
But sometimes there isn’t anything
To swallow at all swallowing
Thinness and diseases
Malnutrition and
Sometimes
Even
death!

While also
The food we
Eating today is
As dangerous as
Poison slowly destroying
Us from our appetite and their
Deliciousness especially from our
Ignorance! Food was never
Complicated to eat like
These days where
You first read the
Curriculum vitae
Of your food
Before your
Swallow
So as
To know
If you will
Survive or not!

Which leaves us this question
If food has become this difficult
To eat what will we eat what are we
Going to be eating, today, tomorrow
And the day after tomorrow? Are
We eating anything? What are
We eating? And what shall
We eat in the future
Remains our
Question!

We are traditionally known for eating
Food! But if we are not careful enough
This same food is going to eat us up
All of us in return!

What I also don’t understand is why
Are we still starving to death yet this
World has developed so much! From
Traveling with airplanes to now
Planning to live in Mars and
At the moon! From having
Traffic conjunctions to
Having underground
Transport system
From having
Technology
In the cables
To now having
The same technology
Connected to our bodies
Like we are born with it yes it!

We need to do something about our
Food! We need to do something
About what we eat and we
Need to do something
About ourselves
Whilst we can
And before
We turn
Into
A
Disaster
That is too
Big for us to
Handle or solve!

Do we really know what hunger is guys
Do we really know what it is
Let us carefully listen to it
To what it has to say
Even if it runs away
From us let us
Let us locate
It and have
A conversation
With him lest we
Can all strike a mutual
Deal that benefits us all!

If all this does not work then we will
Launch a war against hunger
Because he has been
Destroying us for a
Long time without
Us doing
Anything
About
It!

The funny thing about all this is ever
Since the times we started eating
We never stopped eating!
Continuously or with
Some space in
Between!

Viva_2030_Viva!
Viva_Zero_Hunger
Global_Village_Viva!

Viva_2030_Viva!
Viva_Zero_Hunger
Global_Village_Viva!

Here's an audio recording of Mr. Chipeke reading another poem titled, Hunger's Curriculum Vitae
audio-2020-07-18-21-10-51.m4a
File Size: 1328 kb
File Type: m4a
Download File

Picture
​Taku famously known as VaChikepe is one of the best writing poets from Zimbabwe. A two-time featured poet at the Bridgewater International Poetry Festival, he believes that poetry is a calling and he uses different states of mind, music and spirituality to define and express poetry.
 

1 Comment

Poem by Martin Chivaku

6/25/2019

0 Comments

 
Throbbing Belly

​When I was six,
I appreciated everything they did
Honestly... I appreciated!
 
It was probably by design, or
It was probably by default...
But I appreciated everything...
They did...Honestly!
 
Now my belly throbs like a growling bear
I honestly enjoy every moment of being,
Rebellious...Divided we’ll learn how to stand!
 
Meditating on the last night
I made my jaws dance,
I become as angry as a fasting lion in the jungle.
 
But a few years ago, I appreciated everything
Honestly...I appreciated everything they did!
 
They could tell me Jesus represented
A certain race,
Like what!? Isn’t that racism? But my belly was full
So I understood where they came from
But now my belly sings the songs of
Kunta Kinte heading to the west,
I comdemn everything they do!
 
Cutting nails with my teeth isn’t a hobby
But a poor man’s way of feeding...
Call it what you want, cannibalism or
Something but a man’s got to survive!
They call it, “desperate times vis-à-vis
Desperate measures”... Who’s got the ruler,
To measure the intensity of the desperation?
 
I appreciated everything they did
Honestly...I appreciated!
But my token dropped into the manhole
And I no longer appreciate!
 
I’m starving but...
It started as a means of staying healthy
Until my health began falling into the same pit
That dinosaurs fell and became extinct...
I’m hungry...Like I could join the Lord
In his forty days, forty nights fasting
And still find no food to break the fasting!
 
What option do I’ve, besides listening to Lucifer
When he tells me to turn the rock into bread?
A no! Is the perfect answer but my belly is empty
A yes! Is selling my soul, but my belly is empty!
 
I got food on my mind and how
I’m going to get it
Doesn’t matter, as long as I’m not hungry...
They said, “be careful what you wish for...”
What? I wish for food in my mouth
And how I get it is my business
And none of your business!
 
I used to appreciate everything they do
Honestly...I appreciated!
But I don’t anymore because I’m hungry
And hunger will kill me if I appreciate them.
 
Playing hunger games and I’m losing,
Only if I can get her to dig my ways.
I’m hungry to know her...But
How do I get to know her when I haven’t met her
And how can I meet her when I don’t know her?
Like fifty shades of grey are my hopes
And fifty shades of black are my chances...
So it seems like, I’ll always stay hungry.
 
I appreciated everything they did
Honestly...I appreciated!
But a hungry man is what I became
From appreciating their prodigality,
So please pass me a plastic plate,
With fruits, even the forbidden
Is now unforbidden because I’m hungry.
Picture
​Martin Chivaku, his birth and stage name, believes that poetry is a means of communicating with the world and as a poet, he considers himself a messenger or a tool to address issues that affect us on a daily basis. He has also written more than 250 poems and is still not stopping. He lives in Harare, Zimbabwe.  

0 Comments

    Authors

    You can find poets' names under Categories

    Archives

    February 2022
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    February 2021
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    February 2020
    November 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019

    Poets

    All
    Abha Das Sarma
    Betty Makula
    Brenda Gunn
    Brian Tawanda Aka Towandah Ryan
    Chandra Gurung
    Denish Moorthy
    Doreena Jennings
    Edward Kabali
    Fin Hall
    Fizza Abbas
    Ger Duffy
    Guy Chambers
    Imtiaj Alom
    International Poetry
    Jose Padua
    Josephine LoRe
    Katiba Muhammed
    Kelly Van Nelson
    Laura Mulcahy
    Martin Chivaku
    Patience Gumbo
    Poems By JSI Team Members
    Rashid Hussain
    Rena Fleming
    Richard Stephenson
    Sharmila Pokharel
    Takudzwa Chikepe
    Tony Treanor
    Zolisa Gumede

    RSS Feed

Copyright PoetryXHunger 2022


Search the website:

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • 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