Quick Fix

This is Joel here.
I came across a poem that I wrote 17 years ago this month, when I was a student at The King's College exploring poetry and my own 'voice' in a Creative Writing class. Originally, it was accompanied by a photograph. You'll have to use your imagination.

You may - or may not - know that the multinational corporation Nestle was slaughtered in public opinion polls (and a boycott continues by some to this day) for marketing breast milk substitutes in less economically developed countries. Campaigners against Nestle claimed this strategy, which deprived babies of their mother's breast milk, lined Nestle's pockets and contributed to the unnecessary death and suffering of countless babies, largely among the poor.

You may - or may not - know that chocolate milk has long been my drink of choice.

I was struck by the poem because it invites me to consider my 'western', problem-solving propensity as I plan to go, meet and listen to Christians in Sierra Leone.

Quick Fix

your stomach distended; i cry out in pain
more out of my own agony
than yours
i am a westerner

i want to help you compete with the fly
on the corner of your mouth
looking a lot healthier
than you

your mother looks at me, wondering whether
my kind of help
is the quick-fix
Nestles type

i fly home, pictures of flies in my mind
giving me the same bug appetite
i step inside
fixing myself a large glass of Quick

Edmonton, January 1992