Comments on: Michael Johnson’s “How to be Eaten by a Lion”

By: admin

admin — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 23:59:20 +0000

Very interesting. I’m going to read it again in light of your suggested interpretation.

Thanks!

By: Ashutosh Bhuradia

Ashutosh Bhuradia — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 01:53:43 +0000

My apologies for the typos.

By: Ashutosh Bhuradia

Ashutosh Bhuradia — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 01:51:03 +0000

I stumbled upon your site while googling “How to be Eaten by a Lion”. You’re interpretation of the poem gives the piece and interesting dimension. Though I’d a different opinion altogether. I agree with your assessment of the poem’s clear, sharp imagery, the “darkly humorous” tone, but I understood it as a love poem (harking back to Romanticism, as it echoed idea of beauty and death.) What struck me about Johnson’s poem was how he transformed something so inherently terrifying, and brutal, into a thing of beauty.

By: BAP 2009: "How to Be Eaten by a Lion" (Michael Johnson) | Cosmopoetica

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 19:24:40 +0000

[...] glad Jared has taken Michael Johnson’s poem in an interesting direction… it was a poem I dismissed too quickly. First, the poem itself: "How to Be Eaten by a [...]

By: Jared Stein

Jared Stein — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 17:09:08 +0000

Well, I’m only a bit more than halfway through… But I don’t think finding ten or so great poems in any given year is anything I’ll fret about.

By: Chris Lott

Chris Lott — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 01:18:43 +0000

Only 3-4 keepers, eh? That’s not good! Next time we do something like this, you should pick the book :)

I remember the outlines of this poem but will have to sit down with it and see what happens…