Philip Levine on his poem "They Feed They Lion"

I think my poem "They Feed They Lion" is one of my favorite poems by me because I don't know how I wrote it. It was a strange occurrence. It was marvelous. And I had that phrase in my mind, because I'd heard someone say it. I worked with a man who said that. We were loading these used crosses to go to a universal joint. This outfit we worked for bought junk, and then we would refinish some and pass it off as new. It wasn't nice, but it made money. At any rate, it was a big burlap sack, and he emptied everything, the contents on the floor here -- cement floor -- and he held the bag up and it said, "Detroit Municipal Zoo" on it. And he said to me, "They feed they lion they meal in they sacks." And he was laughing. And I couldn't figure out was he laughing at his own grammar, knowing that it was screwy grammar? Or what was he laughing about? I don't know. I didn't ask him. I didn't say, "Lemon" -- that was his name -- "Lemon, why are you laughing?" It just stuck in my mind. And here I am, waking up in the middle of the night thinking, "What can I do with that phrase? I can't let it go." And this was about the time of the terrible riots in Detroit, during the Vietnam War. And I had all that anger about our racial wars, one in Asia, another in Watts in L.A., and one in Detroit, one in Newark, one in Atlanta. And in a way, I was really shamed to be an American at that time, thinking of what we were doing in Asia and in our own cities. It was disgusting. It came out of that.