poverty poems Archives - Best Poetry Online

A New Depression Photo for Walker Evans | Jeff Burt

In abandoned factories gather abandoned people
who no longer do anything with abandon.

The massive conveyor system of steady employment
has broken, the machinery of work has ground

to a halt, the rope unravels that leads to hope.
Wealth begets wealth. Like hand-me-downs, only poverty

gets redistributed among the poor.
See? A rich person is unlike any other, distinguishable,

but a poor person is like all others, extinguishable.
The large man in the photo crouching

in the dimly lit corner, he could be a couch-surfing teen,
an orphan, or turned another way, a single mom.

Married at Fourteen | Sravani Singampalli

September 26, 2023 / Best Poetry / contemporary poets, gender inequality poems, modern poets, poverty poems, resilience poems, societal norms poems / 2 Comments

I was just like any other child
Studying hard to reach my goal
I had a dream like any other child
Of becoming a teacher
In any one of the high schools
I loved to study
Enjoyed playing with my friends
I made merry all the time
Trying to learn new things
With all my mind
I was just like any other child
Until I became a ‘child bride’.
I was married at fourteen
I didn’t know anything
I became easy prey
To economic burden and family culture
In the face of poverty
And because of social insecurities
My parents wanted to get rid of me
Still I kept silent
As was expected from me
I cried very hard
To escape this brutal reality
I tried very hard
To come out of pessimism
I lost my wonderful childhood
To somebody I didn’t know at all.
I became pregnant
At such a tender age
It caused such pain
For I myself was a child
Doctors simply said that
Either I or my baby would survive
I was really helpless
But with god’s grace
I gave birth to my child.
Now I have only one dream
Of eradicating our poverty
And educating my child
So that she doesn’t suffer
Like I did
Just few months back
As a ‘child bride’.
—–
Sravani Singampalli is a 22 year old poet from india. She is presently pursuing a doctorate of pharmacy at JNTU Kakinada University in Andhra Pradesh, India.

Prodigal Mother | Nyashadzashe Chikumbu

August 27, 2023 / Best Poetry / economic injustice poems, poems about social justice, poverty poems, racism poems, social justice poems / Leave a Comment

What am I?
That gum you spat seconds
before you even chewed.
The black illegitimate son
you exorcised from your
societies.
With Regurgitated filth – rats
I was baptized in the slums.
Graced in proletariat garments.
My Creative ingenuity Splatter(ed)
like a fly between
a spatula and gravel.
As I dived, medulla first into
stagnated mud pools.

Poverty | Krushna Chandra Mishra

August 26, 2023 / Best Poetry / cruelty poems, original poem, poems about social justice, poverty poems, social justice poems, structural oppression poems / 2 Comments

What a testing tool this poverty is
to keep the chaff out from the grains
to let the foolish world admit
all is not that gold in shining
and silver screens may not
always be behind all dark clouds
and between the moon and the bread
there always hangs hunger
as the poor never afraid of falling
from a cliff where death reigns
if there is the scent of food brewing
and if elsewhere amid junkyards
and in bio-undegradable polypacks
rotting for days and turning poison
food is visible to the eyes of those
starving emaciated shrivelled bodies
in skinned skeletons as they romp
the land not knowing what looks
life-giving is very soon going to
be spinning out death for them.

Poverty equates in hunger and death
telling nothing really matters
in this tyrannical world where
when the people die hypocrites
in slinging mud on every face are heard
when all is set for nothing to be clearly seen
to fix and find and fine the fools
who in cunning hide in havens
of safety that confusion breeds.

Mac | Roy Pullam

August 21, 2023 / Best Poetry / income inequality poems, poems about social justice, poverty poems, rigged system poems, social justice poems / Leave a Comment

His orange Studebaker
Pulled up
To our house
Mac, my father’s friend
Struggled to get out
Gripping the steering wheel
Pulling his thin body
To the running board
His body twisted right
Broken beyond repair
In a mining accident
His left side
Ratcheted forward
His steps labored
He took the hose
From the coil
On the ground
Placing it
In the fifty-gallon barrel
One of six
In the bed
Of the truck
His well
Without a bottom
Blown out
By the explosions
In the nearby strip mines
I stood by Mac
Holding the grass sack
Full of Purex
Bleach bottles
Jugs I had gathered
At the dump
Jugs he would pay
A nickel for
Jugs he would fill
With the moonshine
He made on the hill
Behind his house
Mac always came
With gumdrops
With chocolate drops
With licorice
He bartered for the water
Mother was not happy
But Dad knew
Without the liquor sales
Mac would starve
They caught Mac
Destroyed his still
Locked him up
Five years
The judge lecturing Mac
For his sin
Of selling whiskey
In a dry county
And at the end
Of his work day
The judge
Had a highball
With friends
At the VFW
Rules are for poor people
Like Mac
The rich
Find their exceptions
The space
Between the laws

December 1954 | Roy Pullam

August 21, 2023 / Best Poetry / economic inequality poems, poems about shame, poems about social justice, poems online, poverty poems, social justice poems / 2 Comments

The wind penetrated my jacket
I hunched my back
Exposing as little
As I could
To the elements
The road was muddy
The gravel spun away
By the numerous cars
That travelled my street
I had no gloves
How ironic
That the cold
Burned my hands
Like scalding water
The mile
To Broadway school
Would be cold
The mist
Like smoke
Escaped with every breath
I watched my feet
Avoiding the puddles
Hopscotching my way
Up the road
We didn’t talk much
It was
As if the weather
Had frozen words
In our mouths
I longed
For a heavier coat
Cap and gloves
Like others had
But they
Were on the list
Of things
We couldn’t afford
A ride
Would be nice
But others
Their heads bowed
Walked with us
Across the tracks
The tracks
That separated the poor
From others
Whose parents
Owned cars
Children with parkas
Warm mittens
Oatmeal
In their stomaches
Often envy
Made me ashamed
Of where and how
I lived
But I told no one
For fear
It would find
Its way
To my mother’s ears
Adding guilt
To the burden
She already carried

Reminders | Sravani Singampalli

August 19, 2023 / Best Poetry / compassion poems, contemporary poets, modern poets, poverty poems, social conscience poems / Leave a Comment

At street number 35
In Lawson’s bay colony
There’s a rich boy
Enjoying sumptuous cuisines with
His friends and relatives
Having a barbecue,
Italian pasta, spaghetti with
Prawns and chilli, butter chicken,
Pancakes and orange juice.
Everybody is flooded with euphoria.
A look of ecstasy on their faces
Reminds me of the cornucopia of pleasures
I’ve enjoyed in my life
And then there’s a poor boy
Living on the roads
Of the same colony
Not like the pauper
In the famous novel
The Prince and the Pauper
By Mark Twain
Rather in tattered clothes
With innocent looks and emaciated
In the throes of bitter childhood
Eating their leftovers
From the dustbin
His hunger reminds me
Of the situations when
I really felt helpless
And had no choice.
But to all of us
It’s a reminder of
Our poverty-stricken nation
Our bad habit of
Throwing food away
Forgetting that it can satiate
The appetite of the destitute children
It’s a reminder of our obligation
To eradicate poverty by
Serving the underprivileged.