They Feed They Lion

I came across this from http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/transcripts/2003/feb/030211.sillman.html

Mr. PHILIP LEVINE (Poet): There's no reason why a great poem can't be political, absolutely political.

SILLMAN: Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Philip Levine says by its very nature, great art is political.

Mr. LEVINE: I don't think a great poem is likely to be a poem that urges you to vote for your state senator, but insofar as you champion, for example, the lives of trees and the purity of the air and water, you've already entered a political arena. It's almost impossible not to write a poem that is political if you are a person who loves.

SILLMAN: Thirty-five years ago, Levine often read his work at rallies against the Vietnam War, specifically this poem about what he says was the disproportionate number of young black men sent to die in Vietnam.

Mr. LEVINE: "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 grass, 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 the muscles' to stretch, They Lion grow.'

I read that 5000 anti-war poets were getting together the next day to protest against the war in Iraq. I did not see this as a political type poem dealing with war but with racism.