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

Poems by Rena Fleming

10/14/2023

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​Irish Famine Poems

I Surmise

So far back
I can only surmise,
of the family who ate
their subsistence meal
in the parlour on Sundays.

I surmise they were not the poorest.
Their house – not a sod, scraw and thatch
cabin on a roadside margin.

I surmise secure tenure of land.
They did not, at least not all,
leave.

I surmise they were people
with self-value, respectability,
tenacity.

​I know that they survived.
They were my people
on the distaff side.

In a Fourth Class Dwelling

Report by Robert E. Matheson, Registrar General for Ireland.
1841-1901 Housing of the People of Ireland Part 83.

4th Class – Houses built of mud or perishable materials.
One room with one, or no window.

3rd Class – A better description of house.
From one to four rooms and windows.

2nd Class – A good farmhouse of five to nine rooms and windows.

1st Class – All other houses of a better description than the
preceding.

1841. 4 th class houses comprised 37% of the total.
1851. 4 th class houses comprised 13% of the total.
The drop was due to ‘failure of the potato crop leading to famine, fever and pestilence’.


With sod, scraw and thatch
they made the shelter
which enveloped them.
The cabin rose from
the ground around it.

When nothing was left
but a flicker of life,
the family drew together inside,
closing the door for decency.

Rain, wind and time
melted the walls.
The roof lowered.
The door rotted.
The cabin sank

​to a hummock, to a wide ridge,
disappeared from sight.
As had the dead from hunger within,
of whom all knowledge has gone.

BIO:
​I come from Co.Limerick, Ireland. I grew up on a farm there. I am a painter, weaver and have written and published poems in recent years.
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Poem by Rena Fleming

9/14/2020

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Great Changes

“Deaths and marriages make great changes.”
That’s what they used to say,
In a general way,
Not specific to the Famine.
There were too many deaths then.
They were too close.
Dying was a failure.
That wasn’t spoken of.
It was lived out of.
It cut a deeper line
Of before and after
Than Independence, the change
From rulers to leaders.
It removed or erased so many
It changed Ireland.
It changed land ownership
From up and down to the middle.
The strong farmers rose.
Their cattle conquered crops.
Marriages were made to unite fields.
In a domestic commerce
Resources were invested for
The future in a son and
A son a priest for good measure
Was a measure of success.
Women served purposes.
Their speaking was sanctioned
In self-betraying confessions
To oppressive clergy.
Their lives went to the farms
Their love to the productive sons.
Their marriages were fodder
For literature.
The absolution of lost knowledge
Comes slowly on the land.
Roots grow from our feet.
My grand father struck a man
Who, in drink, accused my forebears

Of the theft of fields from his forebears,
After the Hunger.
In the Cromwellian phrase of West Limerick-
My grandfather “falled” him.
Who will know now in that place
The story or the truth?
These many years later
We appear to be recovering
From that disease of the blood-
The fear of want.
The roots growing from our feet
Are shorter.
We can love and leave the land.
There are changes.
Click on the file below to listen to Rena read her poem:
great_changes_3.m4a
File Size: 4885 kb
File Type: m4a
Download File

Picture
Rena Fleming grew up on a farm in Co.Limerick and now enjoys the landscape and the shores of Galway Bay.

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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
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Call to Action
    • Resources >
      • Global resources
      • US resources
      • Maryland resources