I'd like to read the title poem of the book They Feed They
Lion, a poem that grew out of a lot of mixture of experiences.
As you gathered from the other poems I was--
or from what I said I was a factory worker for a while
and I was very unhappy as such.
I didn't like living that way and I
didn't think men and women ought to live that way,
and I knew I was pretty powerless to do anything
about it.
And I was determined to get out and I did,
but most of the people who were there didn't get out
and spent their lives there.
And I remember reading about the riots in '67
and the anger of the people in Detroit and, especially
the Black people.
And I felt tremendous awe and wonder at their courage.
Now, I went back to Detroit in '68
and of course, I realized that walking
through the Black ghettos of Detroit
that I was what I am, a little white man from California
and I was frightened.
And this poem came out of the mixture of those emotions,
out of awe and fear.
And it also came out of a good time,
out of having a terrific time, out
of going to a wonderful wedding party
and getting terrifically drunk and stoned,
and being carted home like the helpless thing I was,
by loving hands being put into my familiar bed
and waking up happy and drunk and stoned,
imagining this poem.
I've been drinking for a long time and it's only
just beginning to pay off--
[LAUGHTER]
So I say to you that are in mid river there are two shores,
choose one.
But if you go back you don't ever
know what was there if you went on.
It's called They Feed They Lion, which
is to say that it steals the grammatical brilliance
of a Black man that I worked with once who used that phrase.
And it steals I think, it's all right.
I think it's a poem that someday Black people will write much
better, probably have already written
much better poems like this, but we just don't know about them.
It's the Dave Brubeck of poetry, what white people do
with Black material when they steal,
I don't know maybe it's better than that.
It's called "They Feed They Lion," it's poem of homage.
And I mean it scared shitless.
"They Feed They Lion."
Out of burlap sacks.
Out of bearing butter.
Out of black bean and wet slate bread.
Out of the acids of rage, the candor of tar.
Out of creosote, gasoline, drive shafts, wooden dollies,
they lion grow.
Out of the gray hills of industrial barns.
Out of rain.
Out of bus ride, West Virginia, to kiss my ass.
Out of buried aunties, mothers hardening like pounded stumps.
Out of stumps.
Out of the bones' need to sharpen and muscles to stretch,
they lion grow.
Earth is eating trees, fence posts, gutted cars.
Earth is calling in her little ones, come home, come home.
From pig balls.
From the ferocity of pig driven to holiness.
From the furred ear and the full jowl
come the repose of the hung belly.
From the purpose, they lion grow.
From the sweet glues of the trotters
come the sweet kinks of the fist.
From the full flower of the hams, the thorax of caves.
From bow down, come rise up, come
they lion from the reeds of shovels,
the grained arm that pulls the hands.
They lion grow.
From my five arms and all my hands.
From all my white sins forgiven they feed.
From my car passing under the stars.
From my children inherit.
From the oak turned to a wall.
From they sack and they belly opened
and all that was hidden burning on the oil stained Earth,
they feed they lion and he comes.