|
Mama N’Gina Street (downtown Nairobi, Kenya) Kings of the many black races crowd the streets, ignoring the legless beggar as he drags himself along, swinging awk- wardly between his palms; he is chased from shop doors like a mongrel dog, because he asks for alms and yet has pride which life in the gutter and leprosy could not affect. Discomfited, I look away. My Burmese friends leans overs, whispers words not meant for me, and gently hands him coins, tears of respect.  Jamie Brown is a writer, and critic. He is CEO of Broadkill Publishing Associates, LLC, which publishes chapbooks under the Broadkill Press imprint, and full-length collections of fiction and poetry under the Broadkill River Press imprint. He was formerly Fiction Editor of The Washington Review of the Arts, and an Associate Editor with both the Sulphur River Literary Review and Wordwrights! Magazine He has served as a member of the Poetry Committee of the Folger Shakespeare Library. He also served as Poetry Critic for The Washington Times from 2005 to 2006, and the first creative writing instructor at The Smithsonian.
0 Comments
Children’s Food I loved eating over at your house. Thirteen children squeezed into a picnic table in a drafty back room with two refrigerators. One just for milk, unless you had the kind your mother made with powder in a plastic pitcher. Your teenage sisters with puffy ratted hair came dancing in after American Bandstand. Always two babies in high chairs angled in at the corners Sometimes Tommy, Nancy, Jeanie, Marie. Strawberry pancakes in a box for supper most nights. You could make them yourself just pour in the water. Cherry and orange Kool Aid to drink, what a treat. Stiff marshmallows for dessert, didn’t care much for that. But the catsup or mustard sandwiches you made for lunch. those were something else, being a mustard lover myself. Sometimes for snacks margarine on toast sprinkled with sugar. You called it donut bread. Your sister wrote a book decades later in life, talked about hiding food under her bed at night. I remembered how thin all of you were. How you must have been hungry on the basketball team or swimming across the city pool in the heat. We used to switch back and forth, your house and mine How you loved eating over at my house each time.  Laurel Chambers is a former English and Journalism teacher. She is very active in the Cincinnati, Ohio writing community. Her first Chapbook, Places in the Mist, published by Finishing Line Press. will be coming out in February 2022.
Feed the Bellies The children cry, Squeals in the day. Tossing and turning in the night. Piercing the hearts and souls of their parents. Who themselves are, Bewildered, distraught - deprived. Unable to help their children or themselves. Kids are hungry. Without food in this wide wide world of resources. Empty bellies. Empty spirits. Enduring pain, ongoing suffering, A void of nutrients because of lack of resources, Or the lack of consciousness and compassion? The children cry because of waste. Insensitivity and selfishness. A lack of care. When buckets of fruit drop and left to rot. When vegetables overgrow and tossed away. When tons of food decay in our stores and factories. When we take more than we can chew. And scrape the rest down the drain or in the garbage. Stop wasting food when the young bellies hurt. The earth’s bounty delivers enough for us all. There’s an abundance of food in this wide wide world. Share the resources. Nourish the innocent souls. Let them survive and thrive- so they can rise. Grow it -can it -dry it -and ship it. Lives depends on it. With compassion, empathy and consciousness, We can quell the hungry cries. Feed the bellies. Feed the people.  Dianna L. Grayer, PhD., is a Marriage and Family Therapist in Northern California and has been in private practice for over 25 years. She is also an author, speaker, playwright, director and producer. She spends most of her free time writing poems, plays and children’s books. Dr. Grayer loves to empower, inspire and educate others so that they can live fuller and happier lives.
Homeless because … He is homeless because he failed math. He couldn't figure out how to divide 1 pay check into 4 hungry children. He could only add to his mounting bills. He could only subtract opportunities. He should have studied how to multiply options. She is homeless because she failed english. She is a pronoun it is used instead of a noun. Nouns are places, people, things or ideas. She has no place People have abandon her and the thing is food but she has no idea from where. Children are homeless because sons and daughters failed biology not knowing a zygote from aint got snuggle beneath their father’s musky arm pits. See he perspires worry about the children slumbering on his shoulder.. Comforted by the stench knowing daddy is near. They are homeless because They failed political-science. So hard to trace boundaries and remember political parties when you're not at the festivities. Franklin's New Deal does not have the urgency of the raw deal they have been dealt. Cards pulled from the bottom of the deck. but Homeless is not hopeless and they have failed political science, biology english and math but has society failed humanity. This poem first appeared in in Liberty Press’s 99 Poets for the 99%. Elijah b Pringle III an artivist who uses art to subtlety or loudly protest/enlighten. “When you hit people over the head with a message, you make them unconscientious. I want to awaken them with a nudge or a slap!” Published globally he has appeared on Radio, TV & Stage. He has over 40 years of experience in Training/Education. He credits his true education to 5 generation of teachers.
History of the Hand --for Frank Niemiec History of the ditch digger, stone mason, countless men in factories, on the line. History of abundance, of miracles because it is by our hands that we become who we are. “Marry a man for his hands,” my father said. Probably remembering his own father and the mangled right hand that was torn in half by the machine at the woolen mill. But what did the old man know about machines? He was a foreigner who couldn’t speak the language, a peasant farmer born in Poland when it wasn’t even called Poland. His hands knew only two things: black earth and how to coax the miracle of green from it. Each spring he would perform the miracle in his small American garden. His left hand did the mundane chore of clearing the winter’s debris, breaking the ground with hoe and shovel and pickaxe. His right hand--that terrible, wondrous hand--performed the ultimate magic: placed each seed in its proper spot, made sure it grew into a cabbage or pepper or summer squash. I remember how carefully he would wash that hand after the day’s work. Pat it dry. Place it almost casually on my shoulder. Luminous, enchanted. This poem was previously published in Linda’s book, Living in the Fire Nest (Ridgeway Press, 1996). Click on the file below to listen to the poem: 
 Linda Nemec Foster is the author of 12 collections of poetry including Talking Diamonds, Amber Necklace from Gdansk, and The Lake Michigan Mermaid (2019 Michigan Notable Book). Foster is the founder of the Contemporary Writers Series at Aquinas College and was selected to be the first Poet Laureate of Grand Rapids, MI from 2003-2005. Her most recent book, The Blue Divide, was published in 2021.
In the Presence of Hunger In the nine decades my father lived, he’d experienced the disgrace of unemployment, employment in backbreaking labors, bare feet. In his 70’s, despite my mother’s objections that it was for the really poor, he stood in line for government-issued cheese, refusing to give his name and income. Instead he lifted up his shirt to show his six-inch surgical incision, Look what they’ve done to me, he’d say, and because it was still raw in its recovery, they turned away and gave him the orange cheddar chunk that we rejected because it tasted so bland and waxy. But he sliced it, placed each piece on soda crackers and ate it with sweetened, milk-laden coffee, because his age had taught him there is no dishonor in hunger: the memory of The Great Depression a half-century strong. Video of the poem: https://youtu.be/pZ0_NUF63w8  Teresa Méndez -Quigley was selected as the 2004 Poet Laureate for Montgomery County (PA). She studied under the tutelage of poet Christopher Bursk. She resides in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, with her family, surrounded by untamed gardens and stacks of poems yet to be housed.
Hunger Speaks Hunger. Call my name, people cringe. A dark reputation precedes me. Emptiness, discomfort, longing, potential death leave a bad taste in the mouth. I am misunderstood. I am a signal, reminder, alert. “Hey, your body needs food.” My job is to warn not harm. If I linger too long, the body, mind, spirit suffers. If I linger too, too long, the human vessel perishes. Still, I have hope. Imagine healthy meals on every table. Imagine well fed children thriving in the classroom. Imagine abundant food sources shared worldwide. But for now, Say Hunger, people cringe. All you can eat, people binge. Wasted food could feed many. I wish my name meant plenty. Click on the file below to listen to the poem:
 Aressa V. Williams, a retired DC Public School teacher and an Assistant Professor of English retiree, is also a writing consultant and poet. The aspiring message-maker wrote her first book of poems to earn a Girl Scout badge for Creative Writing. Aressa’s self-published works are Soft Shadows, The Penny Finder, and Pancakes & Chocolate Milk. The word-weaver believes poems are word snapshots. She is the proud mother of Aaron Coley and the grateful grandmother of Aressa Coley.
Koans Did you know that a tribe in Africa ate dirt with seeds hoping they would bloom Did you hear about the village in China where people swallowed grains of dry rice with hot water Did you notice the child in Appalachia giving her apple to the brother who was dying Did you see the stray cat outside your door at night waiting so she could feed her kittens And do you remember the Prophet who turned water to wine trusting us to “Fresh fruits, Fresh fields, Fresh grain” Click on the file below to listen to the poem:
 Grace Cavalieri is Maryland’s Tenth Poet Laureate. She’s written 22 books and chapbooks of poetry; and 26 produced short-form and full-length plays. Her newest poetry publications are The Secret Letters of MMadame de Stael (2021;) and, What The Psychic Said (2020.) Her latest play was “Quilting The Sun,” Theatre for The New City, NYC, 2019. Grace founded and still produces "The Poet and the Poem" on public radio, celebrating 44 years on-air in 2021. The show’s recorded at the Library of Congress and transmitted via Pacifica Network.
|
AboutThe poems that follow are powerful evidence that Poetry Speaks Back to Hunger! Archives
October 2022
Poets
All
|
||||||
RSS Feed