WEBVTT

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I'd like to read the title
poem of the book They Feed They

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Lion, a poem that grew out of a
lot of mixture of experiences.

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As you gathered from
the other poems I was--

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or from what I said I was a
factory worker for a while

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and I was very unhappy as such.

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I didn't like living
that way and I

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didn't think men and women
ought to live that way,

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and I knew I was pretty
powerless to do anything

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about it.

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And I was determined
to get out and I did,

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but most of the people who
were there didn't get out

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and spent their lives there.

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And I remember reading
about the riots in '67

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and the anger of the people
in Detroit and, especially

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the Black people.

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And I felt tremendous awe
and wonder at their courage.

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Now, I went back
to Detroit in '68

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and of course, I
realized that walking

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through the Black
ghettos of Detroit

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that I was what I am, a little
white man from California

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and I was frightened.

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And this poem came out of the
mixture of those emotions,

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out of awe and fear.

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And it also came
out of a good time,

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out of having a
terrific time, out

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of going to a
wonderful wedding party

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and getting terrifically
drunk and stoned,

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and being carted home like
the helpless thing I was,

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by loving hands being
put into my familiar bed

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and waking up happy
and drunk and stoned,

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imagining this poem.

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I've been drinking for a
long time and it's only

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just beginning to pay off--

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[LAUGHTER]

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So I say to you that are in
mid river there are two shores,

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choose one.

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But if you go back
you don't ever

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know what was there
if you went on.

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It's called They
Feed They Lion, which

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is to say that it steals
the grammatical brilliance

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of a Black man that I worked
with once who used that phrase.

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And it steals I
think, it's all right.

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I think it's a poem that someday
Black people will write much

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better, probably
have already written

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much better poems like this, but
we just don't know about them.

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It's the Dave Brubeck of
poetry, what white people do

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with Black material
when they steal,

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I don't know maybe
it's better than that.

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It's called "They Feed They
Lion," it's poem of homage.

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And I mean it scared shitless.

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"They Feed They Lion."

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Out of burlap sacks.

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Out of bearing butter.

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Out of black bean
and wet slate bread.

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Out of the acids of
rage, the candor of tar.

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Out of creosote, gasoline,
drive shafts, wooden dollies,

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they lion grow.

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Out of the gray hills
of industrial barns.

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Out of rain.

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Out of bus ride, West
Virginia, to kiss my ass.

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Out of buried aunties, mothers
hardening like pounded stumps.

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Out of stumps.

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Out of the bones' need to
sharpen and muscles to stretch,

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they lion grow.

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Earth is eating trees,
fence posts, gutted cars.

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Earth is calling in her little
ones, come home, come home.

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From pig balls.

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From the ferocity of
pig driven to holiness.

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From the furred ear
and the full jowl

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come the repose
of the hung belly.

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From the purpose,
they lion grow.

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From the sweet glues
of the trotters

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come the sweet
kinks of the fist.

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From the full flower of the
hams, the thorax of caves.

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From bow down,
come rise up, come

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they lion from the
reeds of shovels,

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the grained arm that
pulls the hands.

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They lion grow.

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From my five arms
and all my hands.

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From all my white sins
forgiven they feed.

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From my car passing
under the stars.

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From my children inherit.

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From the oak turned to a wall.

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From they sack and
they belly opened

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and all that was hidden burning
on the oil stained Earth,

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they feed they
lion and he comes.

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