Poetry X Hunger
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Now More Than Ever:
Submitted Poems

Haiku by Sara Robinson

5/31/2020

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Sudan 2020

I am so hungry
tomatoes so red so firm
I eat but I starve

I drink from the gourd
but still thirst inside my head
how to starve to drink

Can wind calm hunger
as it scours the desert?
No it burns me too
​
When we starve we cry
bloated guts resonate but
the world hears us not
Click on the file to watch Sara read her haiku Sudan 2020
sara_robinson_haiku.mp4
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Sara M. Robinson, founder of the Lonesome Mountain Pro(s)e Writers’ Workshop, and former Instructor of a course on Contemporary American Poets at UVA-OLLI, is poetry columnist for Southern Writers Magazine and poetry editor for Virginia Literary Journal. She has served as guest lecturer at UVA’s College at Wise, Wise, VA. In addition to publication in various anthologies, including We Grew Wings and Flew (2014), Scratching Against the Fabric (2015), Virginia Writer’s Club Centennial Anthology (2017), and Mizmor Anthology (2018); Journals: Loch Raven Review, The Virginia Literary Journal, vox poetica, Jimson Weed, Whisky Advocate, and Poetica, she is poet and author of Love Always, Hobby and Jessie (2009), Two Little Girls in a Wading Pool (2012), A Cruise in Rare Waters (2013 Stones for Words (2014), Sometimes the Little Town (2016), a finalist for the Poetry Society of Virginia’s 2017 Book Award. Her latest poetry book, Needville, was released in 2019, and in 2020 was adapted into and performed as a play. Sara resides in Albemarle County.

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Poem by Katy Giebenhain

5/26/2020

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Love Letter to a Dairy Farmer

This year was supposed to be a good one. Finally.

And now the virus closes restaurants,
schools, the big customers.
Heartbreak is the sound in drains –
a fresh tide rushing
across tiles and concrete
from Idaho to Maine, from farm to farm
15,000 gallons a day.
And somewhere, all of it is wanted.
All of it is needed.

This year was supposed to be a good one. Finally.

What I want to say
is how essential you are. You deserve
Cole Porter lyrics. You deserve a serenade
and decent prices every day.
No matter where milk or
the voluptuous power of butter lands –
refrigerators in motorhomes, houses,
skyscraper cantinas, in every
coffeeshop in every time zone.

This year was supposed to be a good one. Finally.

Udders don’t shut off like faucets.
Bills don’t disappear.
For generations, on schedule,
stanchioned cows bring it
like miners above ground.
Fears and hopes lift
like Jersey eyelashes, like Holstein belly-sighs.
Nothing is abstract.
Farmers know.
​
What I want to say is thank you
every year. And may this one come to be
what it’s supposed to be. Finally.


Click on the file below to listen to Katy reading her poem
love_letter_to_a_dairy_farmer.m4a
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Katy Giebenhain is an ex-expatriate poet living in Pennsylvania. She is the author of Sharps Cabaret (Mercer University Press).

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Poem by Marlena Chertock

5/22/2020

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Ancestral nourishment
 
The foods of my ancestors are made quickly,
can’t wait for the bread to rise
so take it now with us across the desert,
thin crackerlike slabs — matzah.
No time to waste, freedom
is so easily taken away.
 
My ancestors labored over the foods they ate,
brisket marinates for hours,
becomes thick with flavor, soft and tender,
beet and cabbage borscht simmers
until it’s deep red and wilted.
Fill yourself until you’re drowsy.
 
When there’s not enough, my ancestors
shared, slice your serving into several.
Invite friends and strangers to dine
with you for Passover Seder. Drink
at least three cups of wine, recite stories,
the taste of ancient words on your tongue.
 
The foods my ancestors ate are still savored
today, crumbling cookies
called mandel bread cover your shirt,
matzah ball soup warms you
to your core, pita bread dipped
in fresh olive oil, tangy, salty, sweet.
ancestral_nourishment_marlena_chertock.m4a
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Marlena Chertock has two books of poetry, Crumb-sized: Poems (Unnamed Press) and On that one-way trip to Mars (Bottlecap Press). She uses her skeletal dysplasia as a bridge to scientific poetry. Marlena is a bisexual poet and serves on the planning committee for OutWrite, Washington, D.C.'s annual LGBTQ literary festival. Her poems and short stories have appeared in Breath & Shadow, The Deaf Poets Society, The Little Patuxent Review, Noble/Gas Quarterly, Paper Darts, Rogue Agent, Stoked Words, Wordgathering, and more. Find her at marlenachertock.com 

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Poem by Marsha Mittman

5/20/2020

1 Comment

 
SCAVENGERS
(India)
 
the mountains loom large
not pine laden and fragrant
 
nor craggy and awe inspiring
rather huge piles of garbage
 
that daily grow higher
foul rotting reeking
 
of human waste and remnants
and the women children
 
search and dig through the
odiferous malignant heaps
 
for any prize piece of cloth
object wood metal to sell or
 
worse for a rotting morsel
to eat starved as they are
 
with blisters and open sores
on their hands and feet where
 
constant contact is made
and the seagulls natural
 
scavengers of the trash
fly about competing for food
 
the gulls ultimately having
the choice and ability to leave
 
but without education money
skills the human scavengers -
 
the untouchables - are relegated
to and as garbage for life

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Marsha Warren Mittman’s humorous memoir, You Know You Moved to South Dakota from New York City WHEN… (Scurfpea Publishing), is a “Western Horizons Award” winner. Poems/essays/short stories have appeared in American, British, German, and Australian literary journals and anthologies, including six Chicken Soup for the Soul tales. The author of three chapbooks, Mittman’s received various poetry/prose distinctions in the US and Ireland, and a Writer’s Residency at Alabama’s Fairhope Center for Writing Arts.

1 Comment

Poem by Chandra Gurung

5/18/2020

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Hunger and an Impotent State
 
Many days have elapsed
Since any meal was cooked in the old pot
That lies upside-down in a corner of the room
Like a barren womb
It has not been able to conceive a new fetus.
 
For many days now
No prospect has squirmed
In the empty cereal pouch flung into a corner in the room
Like a scrotum devoid of sperms
Unable to engender a new life.
 
For many days
The flames haven’t played with other flames
In the cold fireplace in a corner
Like a cold bed
That hasn’t become an amorous playground.
 
And
That old pot
That empty pouch
And that cold fireplace
Are all together mocking
At the impotent government
That’s helpless like a starved man.

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Chandra Gurung, from the Himalayan country Nepal, writes poems in the Nepali language, and also translates poems of Arabic, Indian and English poets to Nepali. His first poetry collection was published in 2007.
 

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Poems by Fizza Abbas

5/18/2020

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Ode to farmers

When I was a child,

the story of the revival of Lazarus
never really struck me
but now when I look at our farmers
I know why Jesus raised him
He saw the peak of human potential
in generations to come
 
Sowing seeds in the farm,
saving them from wild enemies,
these godfathers ensure their little ones
can be a source of sustenance
for everyone.
 
It's not easy to give up on your child
like that. Especially when you don't know
how his foster parents will be.
 
Pandemic is jealous of the warmth
these people show,
thus disrupting the food supply chain,
making our godfathers destroy their babies
with bare hands.
 
How more cruel can COVID-19 be?

Snack time

I thank the debris
falling
from my house of clay,
for providing a three-course meal
to my little ones
amid pandemic!

​You can click on the file below to listen to Fizza reading her poem Snack time:
poem_by_fizza_abbas.mp4
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Fizza Abbas is a Freelance Content Writer based in Karachi, Pakistan. She is fond of poetry and music. Her works have been published at many platforms including Indiana Voice Journal and Poetry Pacific.

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Poem by Cliff Bernier

5/15/2020

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Bacon and Eggs
Bacon and Eggs

Woke up this morning, got the bacon and egg blues.
Woke up this morning, got the bacon and egg blues.
Got no bacon, eggs too rotten to use.

I’ll make some coffee, sweeten it with milk.
I’ll make some coffee, sweeten it with milk.
Milk’s gone sour, gotta dump it in the sink.

Toast me some bread, gotta get something to eat.
Toast me some bread, gotta have something to eat.
Bread’s all moldy, couldn’t weather the heat.

I’ll raid the pantry, eat some canned beans.
I’ll raid the pantry, maybe eat some canned beans.
Shelves are empty, no cans to be seen.

Woke up this morning, got the bacon and egg blues.
Said woke up this morning, got the bacon and egg blues.
Got no bacon, got nothing to lose.

Clifford Bernier is active in the Washington, DC poetry and harmonica communities. His most recent poems are part of the book The Write Blend, a collaboration between six DC-area poets celebrating diversity.
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Poem by MistyRose™

5/15/2020

1 Comment

 
LOAVES AND FISHES

Eggs of the full shell and shelf-stable milk,
Hot stew or chili worth more than soy silk,
Fresh fruits with cold sides for what they lack,
And oven fired servers are empowered at back.

On racks hats underwear gloves and socks
As if coats of colors could cast off rocks.
Much more is required to bleach white
Spirits less safe running out of the light.

Some welcome each day's repeating gift.
Repast provides for a conversation lift;
No mention is yet made of faith or grace.
Free loaves with fish give no slap in the face.

Claimed turf keeps distance from rebirth
At an intersection that exits dead earth.
Most refuse offers to wake up off the streets.
But none hesitate for all the good eats.

EPILOGUE
A service fleet uncharged and now expanded
Vehicles in the common good will be landed
Fully equipped and mobile so why any fret
By whom is a current secret to be kept

​Here is the video of 
https://youtu.be/fdxb0bvlqMg
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MistyRose™ poetry is published in 4 hard-cover anthology books at the United States Library of Congress and in academic journals. She is the only accepted "Spoken Word Artist" in the state of Oklahoma on the Poets & Writer's Directory  
http://www.pw.org/content/mistyrose_ok . She was the Featured Guest Poet in Houston in 2014. (video recorded https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=689214594500742) MistyRose poem “Frozen Treasure” won 1st in Rhyme 2013 at Inaugural ROMP Competition (Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry). MistyRose poem “Tulsa Sky” displayed 2018 in Brooklyn NY gallery. Other published poems viewable at https://www.facebook.com/mistyrose.ok?sk=notes_my_notes

1 Comment

Poem by Lynda Scott Araya

5/15/2020

0 Comments

 
Hunger
​

Hunger is a tricky beast:
Those who have it
Growling and grumbling,
Nagging to be satisfied,
Hide it from others.
After all,
Not everybody wants to know it
They fear its demands
Believe that to placate it
Will mean less
For themselves.
Sometimes,
Hunger, though shy with strangers,
Leaves clues of its presence:
Perhaps an empty cupboard
Where once it had foraged or
Its owner’s clothes
Now worn and hanging thin
Over rattling bones.
A child might sit apart to eat
One small sandwich
Trying to keep Hunger at bay
Which stares
Big-eyed at the children
With canteen money, filled rolls and fruit.
Hunger grows during times of hardship
And breeds during a pandemic.
It looks for solace,
To be fed
But so many are blind
They look away
Shake their heads at swollen empty stomachs and
Hollowed cheeks.
They are sure
Another will help.
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Lynda Scott Araya is an educator and writer who lives in New Zealand. She has been published or as work forthcoming in Verse-Virtual, Grey Thoughts, The Wild Word, The Pangolin Review and more.

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Poem by Marsha Mittman

5/13/2020

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VIGIL

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places…”
J.R.R. Tolkien

It was light once
Before the land imploded

Before the shutdown
Before children shuddered

The sun shone then
And the moon

Appeared crisp and clear
Not like now –

Shrouded in smog –
And there were animals

And growing things
Like trees and food

Instead of ration packs
And there was water –

Clean water –
There was hope then

All but obliterated now
Yet like a winter solstice

When light returns
We few wait…we wait

Though still in darkness
For the slightest glimmer
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Marsha Warren Mittman’s humorous memoir, You Know You Moved to South Dakota from New York City WHEN… (Scurfpea Publishing), is a “Western Horizons Award” winner. Poems/essays/short stories have appeared in American, British, German, and Australian literary journals and anthologies, including six Chicken Soup for the Soul tales. The author of three chapbooks, Mittman’s received various poetry/prose distinctions in the US and Ireland, and a Writer’s Residency at Alabama’s Fairhope Center for Writing Arts.

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    Now more than ever

    These poems have been submitted to the call for poetry "Now more than ever" 

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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 >
      • West Side Campaign Against Hunger
    • 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