Pete Seeger
Is a picture worth a thousand words?
Is it the same with a song?
Is it worth a thousand pictures?
Who can deny the powerful images
evoked from Songs of Struggle and Protest –
a forte of common humanity?
A song can paint optimism, commitment, and a desire
for peace, freedom, and the right to live without
…Your Millions, Mister.
A piece of...
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Categories:
poverty, courage, emotions, environment, future,
Form: Ekphrasis
Neatness and GodlinessEvery picture I’ve seen of you as a child,
You wear your hair in plaits.
A stern middle parting and two dark brown braids
Falling down on each shoulder.
A maypole’s dream.
You would do your best to wash them when you could,
When shampoo was available,
Or even in the single, small bathroom.
You would vigorously scrub your face too
With...
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Categories:
bereavement, children, grandparents, poverty,
Form: Free verse
One Hundred Percent Loser
This guy looks (and smells) like a loser in every way.
Why does he have to hang around my table today?
Right now, I wish he would turn around and go away.
For the last few days, he has been in this casino.
He is certainly nobody I would want to know.
Overindulging, he has lost every penny to his...
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Categories:
poverty,
Form: Rhyme
Too Precious to Contain
Perfume of tremendous worth,
Emptied from an airtight jar,
Left a sweet fragrance in the air,
As roses on a spring morn.
Promptly brought a harsh rebuke,
Labeled as a wasteful sin.
Others had an insightful view,
It’s too precious to contain.
Basic goods must always flow,
Not withheld with selfish greed,
By the “haves” from the “have not” poor
We must respond to their need.
If...
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Categories:
poverty, blessing, giving, humanity,
Form: Rhyme
Who am IWho am I that I can choose
To pick from my closet different types of shoes
Who am I that my feet are bare
When I only wish I had shoes to wear
Who am I that I have food
Whenever I'm hungry to eat
Who am I that I am hungry
And for food I have to seek
Who am I...
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Categories:
poverty, change, endurance, i am,
Form: Narrative
Two Drunkards
They sat holding bottles
In their hands
And armpits
Pouring mouthful
Of liquor to fill
Their hollow stomachs.
They gazed at each other
As cat and mouse
And spoke a lot of
Inglish with slain syntax
To devirginate
Their motherland.
The two drunkards!
Spoke of a nation's illusions
And the wilted state of
A nation's elites
Raping the cultural norm
Who raped the temple?
They said something
About...
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Categories:
poverty, africa, allegory, betrayal, corruption,
Form: Free verse
Deafening Silence
Deafening Silence
we live in a world juxtaposed
with apparent contradictions
with poverty...
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Categories:
feelings, life, peace, poverty,
Form: Free verse
HomelessFace,
Frozen to concrete river
The rest,
Has fallen through the pavement cracks
Will not be found ever...
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Categories:
poverty,
Form: Free verse
Down the Block from Prosperity
silverware tarnished
forks absent some teeth
plates chipped at the edges
set of cups incomplete
the table wobbled and creaked
like them, sad and bleak...
down the block from prosperity
...
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Categories:
destiny, poverty, sad,
Form: Rhyme
The voice I once forgot was mineI was married,
but to me, it wasn’t marriage.
It was poverty-induced—
a fate sealed by hunger and silence.
I was an orphan,
taken in by my mother’s brother—
the uncle who accepted
that I could live with him.
But he was abusive,
an emotional robber.
He broke the seal of my womanhood
when I was just into the third of the teenage years.
Long story short—
he...
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Categories:
poverty, abuse, betrayal, child abuse,
Form: Narrative
Hopes and DreamsBeneath tin roofs and between rusted walls,
their dreams hang like torn cloth
patched, and faded , in the wind.
A cracked bowl, a child’s laugh
hope drawn in a poster on broken walls....
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Categories:
dream, hope, humanity, poverty,
Form: Verse
The Chalk Beneath My Fingernails-The Chalk Beneath My Fingernails-
I walk a path where roads dissolve,
Where rivers rise and hopes revolve,
Through jungle mist and dusty lanes,
With every step, I carry names—
Of children born with hollow bowls,
But eyes that shine like tempered coals.
The schoolhouse leans against the sky,
Its roof a patchwork, spirits high.
The walls may crack, the floor may creak,
But voices...
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Categories:
books, children, class, poverty,
Form: Free verse
MAKE POWER LOVE AND IT CAN BE SHAREDWhat truly is power
Is it control or the silence that follows it?
Is it born from bullets and broken promises
Or from the love we dismiss as weakness?
Can power ever be shared
like bread split between hungry Sudanese hands
as if leadership were a meal
the poor can taste in equal halves?
Or is power what poisons the soil
the reason Sudanese...
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Categories:
12th grade, africa, poverty,
Form: Free verse
Mummy, What Will I be When I grow Up?The beauty of graceful sunsets lost,
the price of non rewind deep wound cost,
addict blows the opium itching & bleeding,
losing cardboard parts to a child laying
in the sun as the needle stings & pierces.
Lost a deep nerve frantically fierce,
reach out and touch the piercing stars,
its time to play so lets rehearse,
dream of kingdom comes remains far.
Fire...
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Categories:
poverty, drug, introspection, love hurts,
Form: Rhyme
Impish Urchins
impish urchins doze
dragon-slayers bold and brave
~ dawn’s gray as they beg
...
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Categories:
poverty, boy, dream, morning, night,
Form: Senryu
Specific Types of Poverty Poems
Definition | What is Poverty in Poetry?
Poems Related to Poverty
bankruptcy, debt, hardship, lack, famine, difficulty, scarcity, shortage, starvation, deficit, distress, privation, dearth, vacancy, deficiency, pass, meagerness, emptiness, inadequacy, indigence, depletion, reduction, impoverishment, pennilessness, insolvency