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Aerik Francis
_Broken Bread_
break the wonder bread
break that fast the hallowed hollow
hum of a hum of a hungry human
hunger’s humiliation
a burning fast
still breaking slow
still breaking wonder
bread for broken people
heating people eating hot
food breaking broken glass
theories raise cracked glasses
let them eat cake
box of cake mix for a buck
drops of canola for dimes
a family can survive on a box of cake
let’s eat grandma whole family
Uncle Ben Aunt Jemima Mammy jar of cookies
save the crusts save the cookies
a whole family survives on a box
of cake maximize calorie intake
eat the cake we let them
don’t save the cook
just desserts for unjustly deserted
errant nomads of food deserts
emerging scents and emergencies
alchemy cooking
in fire pit hearth kitchens
another supper of dried
split pea curry bubbling
stewing in a spit polished pot
crushed with black pepper
we used to crush lavender in blunts for burns
we used to simmer warm comfort food for burns
we used plastic bags of frozen peas for burns
we made a balm of pulsed lentils for burns
don’t let them eat the blood
begins to cake
constructed malnutrition
loss of vision body attrition
broken fast food broken plates
news feed the force
burn hearts
burn neighborhoods
force feed the fire
break that fast the hallowed hollow
hum of a hum of a hungry human
hunger’s humiliation
a burning fast
still breaking slow
still breaking wonder
bread for broken people
heating people eating hot
food breaking broken glass
theories raise cracked glasses
let them eat cake
box of cake mix for a buck
drops of canola for dimes
a family can survive on a box of cake
let’s eat grandma whole family
Uncle Ben Aunt Jemima Mammy jar of cookies
save the crusts save the cookies
a whole family survives on a box
of cake maximize calorie intake
eat the cake we let them
don’t save the cook
just desserts for unjustly deserted
errant nomads of food deserts
emerging scents and emergencies
alchemy cooking
in fire pit hearth kitchens
another supper of dried
split pea curry bubbling
stewing in a spit polished pot
crushed with black pepper
we used to crush lavender in blunts for burns
we used to simmer warm comfort food for burns
we used plastic bags of frozen peas for burns
we made a balm of pulsed lentils for burns
don’t let them eat the blood
begins to cake
constructed malnutrition
loss of vision body attrition
broken fast food broken plates
news feed the force
burn hearts
burn neighborhoods
force feed the fire
Commentary
Aerik on "_Broken Bread_":
First, major shoutouts to my wonderful poet friends Jeni and Beca for their help with shaping earlier versions of this poem. _Broken Bread_ was written after attending a symposium called "Edible Feminisms” in Los Angeles in early 2018. I was particularly moved by an activist named Tiny who spoke about the ways unhoused people are systemically disfranchised and made to survive on whatever means they can. She discussed ways to advocate for unhoused people and to humanize people away from the usual negative ways we treat and speak about "homeless/jobless" people. She talked about how cake mix in particular was a cost efficient way for people to achieve their daily caloric intake. I instantly thought of that disputed quotation commonly applied to Marie Antoinette: “Let them eat cake” ("Qu'ils mangent de la brioche”). An unfortunate unwitting prophecy that came to fruition. Since the times of the French Revolution, quality food access and issues of global hunger have gravely exaggerated into another gaping gap between the haves and have-nots.
Particularly in the United States of America, these issues of food access cross-cut issues of racial inequality, gender inequality, and income inequality. A panelist in the symposium, New York activist Mama Tanya addressed issues of food access / food deserts in Black neighborhoods and also about movements towards eating sustainably and with high nutritional value. There are severe consequences of prolonged fasting/hunger/famine and it is important to address our own complicity in “force feeding the fire”. Inspired by the books Racial Indigestion by Kyla Wazana Tompkins and The Delectable Negro by Vincent Woodard, it was also important to color this image and to suggest that our social systems are ones that consume racialized peoples rather than letting them eat. I mention Uncle Ben, Aunt Jemima, and Mammy cookie jars as a gestures to the way racial capitalism consumes. These are Black people memorialized as brands, as food vehicles, as Sambo-like characters. So I wanted to drive at that strange tension of a family made to eat a whole other family who bears these brands.
We are what we consume. This is something even the ancients understood, that food is both a medicine or a poison - depending on what and how we eat. In fact, etymologically, “recipe” began as a term closer to “medical prescription”. Even with quality food options limited, folks living in precarious conditions still find clever means to harness the healing potential of food: from a meal of comfort food, to a rustic soup to fight a cold, to makeshift ice packs from frozen foods. Just as Hippocrates wrote thousands of years ago about treating burns with a lentil balm perfumed with herbs, today we continue to use garlic, onions, turmeric, and other foods for home remedies.
So this poem is both an indictment of systems of oppression as well as a dedication to survivors. It is a celebration of those survivors finding ways to live in a society that would rather them starve. They survive through community, through the breaking of bread. They survive through resourcefulness and ingenuity, eating cheap simple meals that can last. They survive through a particular kind of maintenance of dignity, remembering they are still worthy of hot food, luxurious food, sweet food, shared food, any food. The right to food is a fundamental human right.
First, major shoutouts to my wonderful poet friends Jeni and Beca for their help with shaping earlier versions of this poem. _Broken Bread_ was written after attending a symposium called "Edible Feminisms” in Los Angeles in early 2018. I was particularly moved by an activist named Tiny who spoke about the ways unhoused people are systemically disfranchised and made to survive on whatever means they can. She discussed ways to advocate for unhoused people and to humanize people away from the usual negative ways we treat and speak about "homeless/jobless" people. She talked about how cake mix in particular was a cost efficient way for people to achieve their daily caloric intake. I instantly thought of that disputed quotation commonly applied to Marie Antoinette: “Let them eat cake” ("Qu'ils mangent de la brioche”). An unfortunate unwitting prophecy that came to fruition. Since the times of the French Revolution, quality food access and issues of global hunger have gravely exaggerated into another gaping gap between the haves and have-nots.
Particularly in the United States of America, these issues of food access cross-cut issues of racial inequality, gender inequality, and income inequality. A panelist in the symposium, New York activist Mama Tanya addressed issues of food access / food deserts in Black neighborhoods and also about movements towards eating sustainably and with high nutritional value. There are severe consequences of prolonged fasting/hunger/famine and it is important to address our own complicity in “force feeding the fire”. Inspired by the books Racial Indigestion by Kyla Wazana Tompkins and The Delectable Negro by Vincent Woodard, it was also important to color this image and to suggest that our social systems are ones that consume racialized peoples rather than letting them eat. I mention Uncle Ben, Aunt Jemima, and Mammy cookie jars as a gestures to the way racial capitalism consumes. These are Black people memorialized as brands, as food vehicles, as Sambo-like characters. So I wanted to drive at that strange tension of a family made to eat a whole other family who bears these brands.
We are what we consume. This is something even the ancients understood, that food is both a medicine or a poison - depending on what and how we eat. In fact, etymologically, “recipe” began as a term closer to “medical prescription”. Even with quality food options limited, folks living in precarious conditions still find clever means to harness the healing potential of food: from a meal of comfort food, to a rustic soup to fight a cold, to makeshift ice packs from frozen foods. Just as Hippocrates wrote thousands of years ago about treating burns with a lentil balm perfumed with herbs, today we continue to use garlic, onions, turmeric, and other foods for home remedies.
So this poem is both an indictment of systems of oppression as well as a dedication to survivors. It is a celebration of those survivors finding ways to live in a society that would rather them starve. They survive through community, through the breaking of bread. They survive through resourcefulness and ingenuity, eating cheap simple meals that can last. They survive through a particular kind of maintenance of dignity, remembering they are still worthy of hot food, luxurious food, sweet food, shared food, any food. The right to food is a fundamental human right.
Biography
Aerik Francis (he/him/they/them) is Queer Black & Latinx poet based in Denver, Colorado. Recently, they were the 2019 Amiri Baraka Scholar for SWP at Naropa University. They have work published and/or forthcoming in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, the Santa Clara Review, Spit Poet Zine, and TSPJ. Instagram: @phaentompoet
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