A Collection of Poetry X Hunger Poems

Hunger is on the rise everywhere. To help fight it, more than 400 Poetry X Hunger poets from all over the world are using their talents to fight hunger.

In the fall of 2026, NatureCulture ™ will be publishing Poetry X Hunger’s first book: Turning Poetry into Food: A Collection of Poetry X Hunger Poems. The editors, Hiram Larew and Tina Daub, are hoping the poems will be used by everyone – students, faith leaders, elected officials, volunteers, community members, families – to raise public awareness about hunger. A few of the poems follow. 

The Fruits of Famine by Henry Crawford

On those nights we traced
the shapes of fruit until the dark
became our eyes.
On those nights we left our fields
unhearing the crack of broken roots,
the silence of dying ground.
On those nights, twilight filled the deserts
of our crossing with the vermillion breath
of watermelon.
On those nights, the stars seeded the skies
above the camp. Jackfruit guards
stood still as celery stalks.
On those nights we dreamed like you
of strawberry days on porcelain plates.
On those nights I made an apple out of sand
and watched it blow away.

This poem won the 2019 World Food Day Poetry Prize presented by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. 

Mouth of the World by Byamugisha Maxwell 

The world has mouths it doesn’t feed 
Wide open, aching with dust 
It sings in tongues of bitter needs 
Yet bites the hand it dares to trust

It waits where morning does not rise 
In homes where pots hang cold and dry 
It stares through until hollow eyes 
Watch the bread go walking by 

No fire warms a starving soul 
Harvest that fills a broken land 
The belly is a begging bowl 
Held out of time with trembling hands 

But hunger is not fate alone 

It’s a choice, a wound we sow 
The earth is rich, the seed is grown 
And still we turn and let it grow.

Mr. Byamugisha is a Poetry X Hunger Club member at Eden High School in Uganda. 

Shutter by Teri Ellen Cross Davis 

For Kevin Carter, Winner of the 1994 Pulitzer Prize 
for Feature Photography in The New York Times 

And if you could go back, you would 
You would pick the child up, gingerly like a newborn 
cradling her large head, thin-skinned body, jutting bones, 
And no mother you, but you would have hushed her 

Won’t you pick her up, gingerly, like a newborn 
Shoo away the vulture, whose crime is hers too, hunger 
And you’re no mother, but you would have hushed her because 
What distance is a lens, a camera’s shutter, snap that captures 

Shooing away the vulture, (whose crime was hers too, hunger) 
Framing a moment that will pass, like breath, like life 
Because what distance is a lens, a camera’s shutter, snap that captures 
Arid, ravaged Sudan, torn in two, like you as you crouch closer 

Framing a moment that will pass, like breath, like life 
And if you could go back, you would 
into arid ravaged Sudan, torn in two, just like you, crouch closer 
cradle her, large head, thin-skinned, body only jutting bones

This poem received an award in the 2018 World Food Poetry Prize Competition sponsored by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and Poetry X Hunger.  

Enough by Josephine LoRe 

The poem featured in this video was chosen by Feed the Children for their Public Service Announcement: Feed the Children & Poetry X Hunger: “If words were enough.” This PSA has been viewed almost a million times.

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Poetry X Hunger, a non-profit organization founded in 2018, has raised more than $25,000 for anti-hunger groups across the world, and profits from the sales of the upcoming book will go towards anti-hunger organizations. Poetry X Hunger members invite you to join them. Share a Poetry X Hunger poem with your friends and loved ones or write a poem yourself. For more information on Turning Poetry into Food, see the Poetry X Hunger website. Or contact PoetryXHunger@gmail.com

These poems are reprinted with permission from Poetry X Hunger. Copyright © 2026 by Poetry X Hunger.
Photo courtesy of Andreas Riemenschneider.