A Supermarket in California

(photo by Edward O'Neill)

by Allen Ginsberg

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked
down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache self-conscious
looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the
neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at
night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the
tomatoes!--and you, García Lorca, what were you doing down by the
watermelons?

I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking
among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops?
What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following
you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy
tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never pass-
ing the cashier.

Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour.
Which way does your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket
and feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add
shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past past blue auto-
mobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what
America did you have when Charon quite poling his ferry and you got
out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the
black waters of the Lethe?

                                                                            --Berkeley, 1955


Comment: I cracked open a book edited by poet David Lehman called
Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present.  I read
through almost half of it and have to admit a lot of the prose poetry
I just didn't get. A lot of it felt like rambling. When I saw Ginsberg's
"A Supermarket in California" I felt as if I had found an old friend
--and was relieved! I don't know if someone else knows more about
prose poetry, but I found it almost more abstract than verse. Just
makes me want to know more. "Supermarket" is a great poem that most
English majors at one point or another probably have  to read. I'm
going to re-read it a few more times. The thing that strikes me the most
about it is its tone. It grabs you just like much of Whitman grabs you.
Someone correct me if they know better, but I'm assuming this poem is
supposed to imitate Whitman's style and voice. An homage of sorts. It
has that intimate, urgent voice. Almost anthem like. I love how Ginsberg
imagines his predecessor as a goofy old man ogling young grocery boys
but also confides in Whitman as a fatherly figure: "Ah, dear father,
graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America/did you have
when 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?".

This anthology of prose poetry also has Frank O'Hara's
"Meditations on an Emergency". I first became interested
in this poem because it was featured in the AMC show
"Mad Men". I will post it later and see what you all think.
To be honest, I didn't get it. I hate when I don't get it!

But as always, the website for the Academy of American Poets
has wonderful information on Allen Ginsberg and even features
an audio of him reading "Supermarket". It also has an
extensive biography.