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

Poem by Gavin Barrett

6/22/2022

0 Comments

 
Testimony

Illumination is a sudden thing.
We can only think,
think and wait,
and all the while we move, touching this thing,
holding that paperweight,
running a hand through hair,
pulling chin, nose, ears,
biting lips, tapping feet,
always touching.

I’d think, strange how I can touch
these and not god.
My skin then was hide,
felt nothing of god.

Or was it god’s skin
like an orange,
fragrant, pitted bitter peel
before the cool sweet god-juice?

A dark night passed and a hot day came,
heat like the horror
of a beggar on a white afternoon
eating at the public dustbin,
and dry, thick in the throat,
burning my feet through my shoes.

And a friend said
you must peel the orange—here, this way.
I followed her closely
and did the same, finding the flesh inside
touched each still dry lobe, in wonder
and bit at last, drank deeply.
This was my first taste of god.

Harbour Line, Mumbai

Come, come
to Cotton Green,
a heaven.

Here are
empty beggars
with yellow eyes.

​And there,
just a little down the line
at Currey Road,
they look for food
in the parked garbage trucks
waiting
to be washed.

To the years coming and going

Blessed, walked on stars and coals 
mind a red-hot rose opened in the cold 

burned, fell 
was the story that I tell

not the king but Falstaff
jugs in hands, laughed

drank with fear, ate with dust
tongue a blade, everything and I could burst

ran for miles in bared teeth
so she and I could meet. 

Come in this year, find a seat
a blessing cup. On the fire there is meat.
Picture
Poet Gavin Barrett is a Canadian immigrant poet of colour, born in Bombay (now Mumbai) to Anglo-Indian and Goan-East-African parents. He is the author of Understan (Mawenzi House, 2020), a CBC Books recommendation, and co-curator of The Tartan Turban Secret Readings, a literary reading series that promotes IBPOC voices in Canadian literature.

0 Comments

    About

    The poems that follow are powerful evidence that Poetry Speaks Back to Hunger!

    They were submitted to the 2021 World Food Day Special Call for Poems from North American Poets.  Several of these poems will be showcased in the coming weeks by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the Capital Area Food Bank.  

    Thanks to poets Josephine LoRe (Alberta, Canada), Brian Donnell James (Virginia, USA) and Martiza Rivera (Maryland, USA) for helping to assess the poems.  Thanks also to Rebecca Roach for donating nearly 1200 tree seedlings on behalf of the poets who submitted work.  And, a big thanks to poet Aaron R who helped to administer the Special Call. ​

    Archives

    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021

    Poets

    All
    Anna Mioduchowska
    Anna Yin
    Antoni Ooto
    Aressa Williams
    Argos MacCallum
    Bartholomew Barker
    Bhikshuni Weisbrot
    Brenda Gunn
    Brittany Sabatino
    Buffy Aakaash
    Cindy M. Buhl
    Cleveland Wall
    Dan Bissonnette
    David Bartlett
    David Mook
    Diane Sahms-Guarnieri
    Diane Wilbon Parks
    Dianna L. Grayer
    Doris Diosa Davenport
    Eileen Trauth
    Eldon Winston
    Elijah Pringle
    Elizabeth Black
    Ellen Bass
    Faris Ahmed
    Gavin Barrett
    Grace Cavalieri
    Heather Meloche
    Heidi Mordhorst
    Henry Farkas
    Henry Victor
    Jamie Brown
    Janet Cannon
    Joan McNerney
    John Guzlowski
    John L. Dutton II
    Joseph Caperna
    Joyce Williams Graves
    Justin Johnson
    Keith Inman
    Laurel Chambers
    Lauren Camp
    Linda Fischer
    Linda Nemec Foster
    Linda Pastan
    Linda Wolfe
    Lori Heninger
    Margaret Patricia Eaton
    Marilyn Fishman
    Mark Fishbein
    Megha Sood
    Milton Carp
    Molly Ponkevich Burack
    Nityananda Khanal
    Patricia Trentacoste
    Patsy Asuncion
    Rg Cantalupo
    Richard Stukey
    Rosemary Klein
    Ryan Gibbs
    Sally Zakariya
    Sandra Rivers-Gill
    Serena Agusto-Cox
    Shan Overton
    Sharon Olson
    Sistah Joy
    Stewart Acuff
    Susan McMaster
    Sylvia Dianne Beverly Aka Ladi Di
    Teresa Méndez-Quigley
    Theresa Tull McGinnis
    Thomas Schuelke
    Waqas Rabbani
    Willeena Booker
    Wynne Morrison

    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