Making the Lion for All It's Got -- a Ballad
Making the Lion for All It's Got -- a Ballad - meaning Summary
Violent Allegory of America
Ginsberg’s short ballad stages an allegorical encounter between a lion and “America.” The poem compresses a violent, surreal contest in which America deploys weapons yet is defeated and devoured by the lion. The aftermath is grotesque and blunt: the nation reduced to waste across the desert. The poem reads as a provocation about power, hubris, and national decline, using stark, confrontational imagery and abrupt closure.
Read Complete AnalysesI came home and found a lion in my room... [First draft of "The Lion for Real" CP 174-175] A lion met America in the road they stared at each other two figures on the crossroads in the desert. America screamed The lion roared They leaped at each other America desperate to win Fighting with bombs, flamethrowers, knives forks submarines. The lion ate America, bit off her head and loped off to the golden hills that's all there is to say about america except that now she's lionshit all over the desert.
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