Tina Daub and Larew (pictured) were invited to display a Poetry X Hunger table at the Eastern Shore (of Maryland, Virginia and Delaware) Association's Bay to Ocean Writers Conference.  We met lots of wonderful writers, reconnected with many friends, networked widely ... and raised 200 dollars US for Feed the Children. Yes!

Poetry X - Using Poetry To End Hunger

Thanks to "Shore Stories" WHCP Radio Program Host, Val Cavaheri, for providing this 10-minute showcase of Poetry X Hunger.   Aired on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the program can be heard using the link above.    Here's to Poetry X Hunger on the airwaves!

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Issue One of the UK-based Universes Poetry journal includes a featured article on Poetry X Hunger.    Thanks to Editor Nicole Gayler and her team.  (Ms. Gayler has a poem on the Poetry X Hunger website.)

Issue One is full of stunning artwork and fine poems.   Here's the link to grab a free e-copy of it -- Issue One Digital PDF | The Universes Poetry ​The article about Poetry X Hunger appears on page 41 and 42.  

​Recent info is now available on the huge amount of food wasted in the United States.

Here are highlights from the Dec 18, 2025 Greenbelt (Maryland, USA) News Review, in an article by Tom Taylor titled, "Reducing Food Waste Is Holiday Gift to the Community. Planet."

ReFED. a non-profit organization dedicated to food waste reduction, estimated that on Thanksgiving Day 2024 alone, 320 million pounds of food would be wasted.  This is equal to $550 million worth of uneaten food discarded and to 267 million meals that could have been served to people indeed.  [Here's the link to ReFED -- Food Waste Solutions & Statistics - Reducing Food Waste in the U.S.

Production of this [wasted food] also meant wasted use of 16.2 trillion gallons of water (more than the total freshwater use of California and Idaho combined) and 140 million acres of US cropland (equivalent to the combined size of California and New York State.)

[And] discarded food waste comprises 22 percent of residential waste in the Prince George's County (Maryland, USA) landfill according to the most recent waste composition study (2022).  

And, here's a link to Food Rescue US -- a group working to reduce waste -- as shared by Nan Meneely.
https://share.google/6cSnQPCQLfWfZnzYg

Here's what Nan says about food waste --
"I found the equivalent of New Haven's Haven's Harvest organization, for whom I volunteered. Donating, writing, speaking out about the devastation of hunger nationally and globally are all things we know we can do. I'm here just to say that volunteering for this kind of organization brings a kind of gratification only human interaction can give. When I delivered the leftovers from Conn College (poached salmon once!) to New London's Community Meals and the Covenant House shelter there, I got the kind of face to face thanks and grateful hugs that both made me cry and were my armor against the sense of futility our politics breed. It's a giving thing from and to the volunteer. "

 

In her article, "Let Them Eat Content: When Ordinary Stapels Become Signifiers of Wealth," Angelique Minas discusses the troubling role that "wealthy" foods are increasingly playing in society.   

From the article -- "Food is being treated less as a basic necessity and more as a symbolic luxury and social currency."

Here's the link to the article:  Let them eat content: when ordinary staples become signifiers of wealth - Overland literary journal

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The Vina Moses Center provides food and other essential items and services to those who are in need in and around Corvallis, Oregon, USA.  

The Center recently included Maggie Bloomfield's powerful Poetry X Hunger poem, "I Was a Lucky One" in a letter that was sent out to hundreds of households asking for donations (see poem below).  

Her poem was accompanied by the artwork above that was created by a Corvallis artist after reading the poem.  

Many thanks to Ms. Bloomfield, to The Vina Moses team and to the artist for including poetry in this important work. 

Info about The Vina Moses Center is here -- Vina Moses Center

Here's the poem -- 
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I was a Lucky One
By Maggie Bloomfield

My mother cooked
naively,
tuna casseroles, pigs
in blankets,
meat loaf.
Once I moved to the city,
I mocked her skill
to take a perfectly good
roast beef
and turn it into
a small black rock.

My parents worked hard
to feed us.
They offered love,
support, education
and countless meals.
          I would trade the organic
          vegetables and cereals
          I am privileged to eat
          to spend an hour
          chewing my mother’s Sunday roast.
Food was available, plentiful,
enough to fill a stomach, healthy enough
to grow
me.

Student members of Eden High School's Poetry X Hunger Club proudly installed a school-yard sign welcoming their classmates and others.  Word is spreading -- Other Ugandan schools are asking Arionzi Clinton of the AaP Agri-Food Initiative for his help in forming Clubs.  Thanks to him and the leadership at Eden High School for blazing this important trail.  Here's to the power of student poetry to speak back to hunger!