They Feed They Lion

Levine returned to his hometown of Detroit after its devastating 1967 riots (See: Historical Context) and resolved to write something that seemed like an incantation, magical charm, or spell, to explain the causes of the event. Levine hoped to shed light on the economic and social problems that existed long before the city went up in flames. The poem encompasses a litany of how dissent evolves, whether “out of” (Lines 1-4, 6-10) or “from” (Lines 14-17, 19-23, 26-31). This list has a cumulative effect showing how the experience of many hardships can build oppression resulting in the need to “Rise Up” (Line 22). The Detroit riots broke out in an African American neighborhood and Levine deliberately uses African American Vernacular English (AAVE) to capture a true voice.

The first stanza details the impoverishment of the industrial worker. Their resentment comes “out of burlap sacks, out of bearing butter” (Line 1). Levine noted in an interview in The Atlantic that the title came from a memory of a co-worker he had, “a black guy named Eugene” (See: Further Reading & Resources). Eugene and Levine were moving car parts onto “burlap sacks” (Line 1) in the 1950s. According to Levine, “Eugene held up a sack, and on it were the words Detroit Municipal Zoo. And he laughed, and said, ‘They feed they lion they meal in they sacks.’” Levine liked the phrase and remembered it years later after surveying the post-riot damage. This initial description helps identify the poem with Detroit’s industry. “Bearing butter” (Line 1) is car grease and “creosote, gasoline, drive shafts, wooden dollies” (Line 4) connect to the automobile industry.

This working life is one of poverty. The meals the working man eats consist of lackluster “black bean and wet stale bread” (Line 2). Most African Americans were barely making enough money to pay rent, so food was often very sparse; this elicits “acids of rage” (Line 3). By ignoring this strife, the privileged “feed [the] lion” and the discontent in “[the] lion grow[s]” (Line 5). This refrain is repeated throughout the poem to show accumulating despair and anger.

The history of the downtrodden is also explored in the second stanza as the speaker touches on Southern roots and the Great Migration. Some people move from a poverty-ridden state, like “West Virginia” (Line 8), to a location to better themselves in “the industrial barns,” but find instead a place called “Kiss My Ass” (Line 8)—an equally indifferent environment. Dissent, the speaker seems to suggest, is also passed down by generational experience. It comes “out of buried aunties” (Line 8). If one is oppressed like the “[m]others hardening like pounded stumps” (Line 9), then anger grows “out of stumps” (Line 9). In other words, oppressive circumstances will result in a fight against oppression. Poverty and unrelenting labor comprise a type of cage that anyone would desire to escape and thus, “[t]hey Lion grow” (Line 11).

Detroit's struggle to manager a growing number of people and failing factories is shown by how “Earth is eating trees, fence posts, / [g]utted cars” (Lines 12-13). This suggests cracked sidewalks and abandoned places and items. Here, “earth is calling in her little ones, / ‘Come home, Come home!’” (Lines 13-14), suggesting an image of death. Even “earth” (Lines 12, 13) connotes that this empire of industrialization is doomed.

The poem’s subsequent imagery focuses on hogs’ body parts. The speaker notes the “pig balls” (Line 14) and the “furred ear” (Line 16), as well as the “full jowl” (Line 16) and “hung belly” (Line 17). Hogs are sacrificed to propel industry and keep sated the appetite of the wealthy. The wealthy enjoy the “full flower / [o]f the hams” (Lines 20-21), while the workers are forced to eat the least edible parts of the animal: the testicles and hooves. Levine asserts “[t]hey lion grow” (Line 18) due to “the ferocity of pig driven to holiness” (Line 15). The oppressed, represented by the hogs, feel fierce because of how those in power take them for granted. In other words, the animal trapped is driven to a mission, a “holiness” (Line 15) that gives it “purpose” (Line 17).

The speaker says that the “sweet glues of the trotters” (Line 19) causes the “sweet kinks of the fist” (Line 20). Those who must subsist on pig hooves feel frustrations; this is exemplified by the “fist” (Line 20) prepared to be raised. “Trotters” could also symbolize the fancy shoes of those who benefit from the meatpacking. The anger at the rich benefitting from the poor is the reason for the poor’s ”thorax of caves” (Line 21). The wealthy’s ability to have success without considering the life of the workers who must slaughter actual animals causes the workers’ “thorax [the cavity enclosed by the ribs, the breastbone, and the vertebrae, containing the heart and lungs]” (Line 21) to be hollow—a powerful image suggesting emptiness and pain.

In Line 22, there is a shift in the poem as the speaker addresses the community’s justified anger. Having to “Bow Down” (Line 22) like a servant or slave gives way to the call to “Rise Up” (Line 22). “Come they Lion from the reeds of shovels” (Lines 23) suggests both the Southern heritage the African American worker carries with them and how the current environment births resentments. The speaker hints that the promise of a better life in Detroit went unmet and racism and oppression continued in a different venue. Thus: “They Lion grow” (Line 25).

Critics have debated the significant use of the first person in Stanza 5, suggesting Levine is speaking from his personal white male perspective. However, it is possible to read this speaker as the personified “white” Detroit recognizing its culpability for the destruction of its city by ignoring its poor and racially diverse citizens. That the speaker is Detroit personified rather than a particular person is suggested by “my five arms and all my hands” (Line 26). Given that humans only have two “arms” (Line 26), this notation suggests an overreaching that could indicate the expansive industrial growth of the city. It may also reference the city’s access to the five Great Lakes which were key to its commerce. The rapid spread of greed increased the suffering of the poorest individuals—predominantly African Americans.

Insufficient housing and racist home owning policies further increased disparity. Racial profiling also contributed to the problems: “From all my white sins forgiven, they feed, / From my car passing under the stars / They Lion […]” (Lines 27-29) suggests the privileges of being white in this community. Detroit’s white population did not receive the same treatment as its Black population and had the economic privilege to move about unencumbered. This explains resentment about how “white sins [are] forgiven” (Line 27), how white people are permitted freedom of movement, and how inheritance will be granted to white children just by the color of their skin. Neighborhoods were segregated, which Levine conveys by noting “from the oak turned to a wall, they Lion” (Line 30).

When this state of being could no longer be tolerated, “they lion” (Line 30) roars. On the night of July 23, 1967, the anger boiled over and the riots that would eventually involve US troops, violence, looting, and loss of life began. Levine describes this moment of chaos as “[f]rom they sack and they belly opened / And all that was hidden burning on the oil-stained earth” (Lines 31-32). Levine’s placement of blame is clear: The systems perpetuating poverty and racism fed the “Lion and he comes” (Lines 31-33) to destroy what is in his wake.