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Poem by Laurel Chambers

12/29/2021

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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.


Picture
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.

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    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. ​

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  • 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
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