WINNING POEM: Breadlines
In 2018, The Poetry Society’s Young Poets Network partnered with Oxfam and End Hunger UK to run a poetry competition for UK-based writers aged 11-25, in response to the scandal of UK hunger. The UN’s Gallup World Poll had suggested 4 years earlier that an estimated 8.4 million people in the UK lived in households where adults reported insecure access to food in the past year, but under austerity governments food bank usage had continued to rise. At the same time, in England, no one in government was measuring how bad the situation was, although Labour’s Emma Lewell-Buck MP was pressuring for that to change. I felt I had to do something, so the night I found out about the competition - the night before the deadline - I wrote a poem, recited it to camera and sent it off.
Thank God I did! The piece - named Breadlines - won 1st prize in the 16-18 age category. As a result, it was published in a collection titled Poems to End Hunger, made into a film by Carl Shanahan and toured around the UK in an exhibition to raise support for Emma Lewell-Buck’s Bill to measure food insecurity in England. This tour culminated in the Houses of Parliament, where I was invited to perform it for activists and MPs alike at the End Hunger UK National conference!
For me, this was all very exciting. But the more I found out about hunger in the UK through this, the less excited I got and the more angry. Food poverty should not exist in a country as wealthy as the UK is. I wanted to do more, so I emailed End Hunger UK. They put me in contact with #DarwenGetsHangry, a youth-led campaign addressing food poverty in Lancashire, who I continue to write for and with today. I should also mention that in February 2019, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) confirmed that it was planning to include household food insecurity measurement questions in its annual Food and Resources Survey, starting in April 2019.
Breadlines
Give us this day our daily bread
So said the underfed, Give us it because the baby’s half-dead Because when Susie’s heading to the bank She doesn’t mean NatWest – There wouldn’t be any point anyway.
They have cropped the Lord’s Prayer. They want one thing from the Divine: Daily bread, hence why When we talk about poverty We call it the breadline Where £1.85 Means you’re buying some red wine And the Daily Mail’s headlines Invade minds like head lice.
And on the corner near Home Bargains Aidan sits on the paves. He’ll gladly accept your coppers But is desperate for change, Tin cans and plastic bags lovingly arranged.
He tells me: “This is a food fight. This is the Hunger Games.”
And little Benny’s tummy is rumbling He calls out to eat something And Mummy’s coming But in her hands she’s carrying nothing And he’s crying again, Off he goes, But little does he know His mum hasn’t eaten for three days in a row.
Sometimes I hope that I’m seeing Fake news on the television Because what I’m seeing is so shocking That I want it to be fiction, Then I hear complaints From my mates When a packet of grapes Is out of their price ranges.
And I don’t mean to make this an issue of religion But with prices like high rises These fruits remain forbidden.
I’m not a cynic But it is ridiculous when the 1% Are still fattened up like chickens. How is this still a problem in Britain? How here do eight million Still struggle to get food into the kitchen And why are those worst affected Including one in five children?
Yet the issues are still hidden. These stories remain unwritten And nobody’s listening.
But the thing with Pandora’s box Is that there’s still hope within it.
And that hope is from the times I’ve seen people supporting their neighbours, Even those normally cautious with their wages, And yet when I see people collecting donations It’s not the suits that are paying up, It’s the teenagers. Unreported acts of bravery Every day by the nameless. So forget God Because I reckon Five thousand can be fed Without divine intervention.
So give us this day our daily bread
Or at least give us the means Because we’ll manage the rest.
