"A Supermarket in California"

 

 

             So this poem clearly takes place in a supermarket. While reading this poem I kind of felt a little sleepy not because it was boring but because it has a dream like sequence to it. Ginsberg is basically watching people shop for groceries and he imagines that he see famous writer and influence to Ginsberg Walt Whitman. Walt Whitman has that old presence about him that you pick up during the poem. This poem is a calm Ginsberg piece he is not using explicit language or describing people in such a detailed manner.

 

            In this poem the speaker is wonder the streets and is looking at a full moon (reference to “Howl”?) The speaker is hungry and tired but is shopping for pictures. He going into the supermarket dreaming of Walt Whitman, He notices people shopping for food at night, which kind of surprises him, the supermarket is filled with fresh fruit and vegetables maybe this is a sign of life and fertility. The speaker than imagines that he sees a Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca looking at watermelons. Now he sees Walt Whitman looking at the refrigerated meats. The speaker thinks he is being cheap but who is he to judge when one of the greatest writers is right in front of him. “Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?” is what Whitman asks the worker, Ginsberg writes this in suggesting that maybe Whitman is gay or is questioning his sexuality. Now the speaker is imaging that him and Walt Whitman are friends and are talking and shopping at the supermarket. Now he thinks that the “store detectives” are after them because they were sampling food that they were not paying for.

 

            The speaker asks Walt for direction on what to do next. I think maybe he was asking for life direction because he is so lost in lie that he doesn’t know what to do. The speaker is holding on Walt’s book and feels so weird to be holding such a big book when he feels so small and unwanted. In the end he basically questions American life and he says “Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?” Charon is Greek mythology meaning bringing dead people across the river and Leathe is referring to Greek mythology where you drink it you will loss all memory. The ending is a little hard for me to decide on what exactly going on but because Whitman is really already dead Ginsberg is trying to get across that he has died and everything he ever wrote or stood by is forgotten now.