Hunger. It’s a universal feeling and experience, and that’s the reason local poet Kyd Kane chose it as the topic of her ArtPrize entry and visual poem broke(n)hunger.

“Even if you’ve never experienced hunger literally, you still know what it feels like to be hungry,” said Kane. “It’s a human condition that we all feel whether it comes from lack of things or not. I wanted to be able to connect with humans because that’s what ArtPrize is all about.  And what’s the connecting piece? Hunger. Tell the truth, speak truth, and people will respond to it.”

ArtPrize visitors have certainly responded to Kane’s work; it received enough votes to be placed in Top Twenty of ArtPrize 9. Kane’s talent comes from her ability to use her own life experiences to connect and resonate with those who witness her creative work.

“I was raised by a mom with four children. Hunger was not something that we ever experienced literally, but we were always hungry for more and needing to have more,” Kayne said. “My mom struggled to make ends meet and she did it seamlessly, but looking back now as an adult I recognize how much she sacrificed and how much she didn’t have.”

Comparing her experiences as a kid with her experiences now as an adult, she realizes that they don’t differ much. Hunger has been something that she has had to deal with her entire life, and that’s why she can write about it so powerfully.

“I’m experiencing some of the same things my mom did as a thirty year old,” Kane said. “I make enough money to cover all my expenses, but if one thing happens out of the ordinary that takes away from the money that I’d normally use to pay my bills, I’m in trouble.”

In addition to literal hunger, Kane has been experiencing the hunger to write ever since her school’s second grade poetry competition.

“When I looked at other people’s work for the competition I thought to myself, ‘Oh, I can do this!’” said Kane. “After that I wrote a lot. I wrote how I wanted my life to be different. Writing for me was a way to stay sane. I’ve never stopped since then.”

Another type of hunger that Kane experiences is her desire to continually improve as a writer and poet. Sometimes her hunger for improvement leaves her underestimating the value of her own work.

“As I was writing broke(n)hunger, I threw it away and was going to start over from scratch,” said Kane. “I wrote two other pieces that I was going to use but I decided to save them for something else instead.”

But other times, this hunger for improvement has creative and unique results.

“Broke(n)hunger is a poem within a poem,” Kane explained. “So the red words in the poem actually form an entirely different poem. I went through the poem several weeks after I finished it. I was just going to put emphasis on different words but then I realized I could connect them together to create another poem.”

Kane seeks to bring words together into poems that in turn bring people together. She shares her writing a number of ways, ranging from open mic nights at local restaurants to writing workshops for both elementary schoolers and college students. She is hungry for her community to experience and appreciate the beauty of poetry.