A Supermarket in California

By Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg, one of America's most prominent poets in the mid-twentieth century,

wrote a poem called A Supermarket in California. The poem's speaker, widely identified as

Ginsberg himself, walks into a garish, brightly lit supermarket and encounters Walt Whitman, a

19th-century American poet whose work he has been reading. Whitman, for example, acts as if

he has been dumped on Earth by extraterrestrials; the shopping environment is alien to his 19th-

century sensibilities. Before posing further probing and philosophical questions to his poet guide,

the speaker imagines himself eating all of the produce and not paying for any of it. He wonders if

America has become too consumed with consumerism and a monetary mindset, and as a result,

has lost its direction and its capacity to love. Whitman's idealistic and romantic vision of

America is undoubtedly already dead, as the poem finishes with an image of him in the

underworld.

Walt Whitman, I've been thinking about you tonight. I felt self-conscious as I strolled

down the tree-lined, moonlit street. I went to the brightly lit supermarket as much for the visual

stimuli as for the food in my weird condition of need and tiredness. All the way, Walt Whitman,

I was thinking about your poetry. The store aisles were brimming with fruit and shadows.

Husbands, wives, and babies were all shopping together amid the fruits and veggies. Among the

watermelons, I even noticed Federico Garcia Lorca. (p.1)

Walt Whitman, I saw you in the meat section, looking like an elderly childless oddball.

You were questioning the male members of staff about the origins of the meat, the price of

bananas, and which of them might have been your angel. I followed you around the store's gaudy
merchandise displays, imagining the suspicious security guard tailing us. We went about

aimlessly, trying any and all of the items we desired without ever planning to pay for them. (p.1)

Walt Whitman, it's time for us to leave; the store closes in an hour—where are we going?

I'm instantly embarrassed about my childish fantasy about our enormous supermarket trip. Are

we going to trek through the dark night together? The trees make the night even darker, and the

houses have no lights on, so we'll be completely alone. Will we daydream about a better America

while we drive past identical automobiles and houses on our way to our quiet little house? What

was America like when you died, when Charon the boatman took you to the country of the dead,

oh great poet? (p.1)

A Supermarket was founded in California by Allen Ginsberg, one of the founding

members of the Beat Generation. He is well known for his poem "Howl," which has gotten him

into a lot of trouble because of its contentious subjects. Ginsberg and his poem were placed on

trial in California after the poem was deemed immoral, and a court subsequently found that the

poem was totally legal due to Ginsberg's first amendment rights. A Supermarket in California,

which appeared in Ginsberg's book Howl and Other Poems in 1956, is another favorite among

Ginsberg fans. By that time, Ginsberg had relocated from New York to San Francisco, where he

met and fell in love with Peter Orlovsky, whom he remained with until his death. In San

Francisco, Ginsberg met other important members of the Beat Generation.