1995 0-7734-2755-4 Many of the poems in The Hunger deal with childhood trauma and its lifelong effects. These words and images show both the child's struggle to make sense of human evil and the adult's retrospective pondering of darkness in an attempt to achieve understanding. The tone is elegiac, suggested the mourning process that leads to healing. Ultimately, The Hunger is about the mind's ability to transform suffering through the language of poetry.