A Supermarket In California was written by Allen Ginsberg in 1955, in Berkeley, Ca., and published in Collected Poems 1947-1980. Read the entire poem at famouspoetsandpoems.com
Shopping For Images
Feeling lonely and self-conscious, thinking about Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg takes a stroll to his friendly neighborhood supermarket. Upon entering the store, In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, Ginsberg is struck by the amount of people who shop at such a late hour.
Ginsberg is overwhelmed by the abundance of fruit and vegetables; a plethora of produce; within which Ginsberg sees wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes; and in the watermelons, he can't fathom the appearance of the great Spanish avant garde poet and revolutionary Garcia Lorca.
The Surrealistic Supermarket
Continuing on, through the surrealistic supermarket, Ginsberg imagines he sees Walt Whitman wandering the aisles of the market, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys, asking for the price of bananas and questioning the morality of pork chops.
Paranoid, and possibly hallucinating, due to the brightness and color of the fruits and vegetables, Ginsberg thinks maybe, as he follows Whitman, the store detective follows him; perhaps for fear of getting caught, as the two poets wander the aisles stealing artichokes and perusing the canned vegetables, slipping past the cashier without notice.
Dreaming Of The Lost America
Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Feeling absurd for having even imagined such a thing, Ginsberg touches Whitman's book, and can't help but dream further of such an improbable and sensational happening; exiting the supermarket, wandering the streets, he asks: Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
1984 Harper-Collins Publishers, Inc.
ISBN-10: 0060914947
ISBN-13: 978-0060914943
Further Reading by Allen Ginsberg:
Howl and Other Poems (1956) ISBN 9780872860179
Kaddish and Other Poems (1961) ISBN 9780872860193
Empty Mirror: Early Poems (1961)
Reality Sandwiches (1963) ISBN 9780872860216
The Yage Letters (1963) - with William S. Burroughs
Planet News (1971) ISBN 9780872860209
The Fall of America: Poems of These States (1973) ISBN 9780872860636
The Gates of Wrath: Rhymed Poems 1948 - 1951 (1972)
First Blues: Rags, Ballads & Harmonium Songs 1971 - 1974 (1975), ISBN 0-916190-
Plutonian Ode: Poems 1977 - 1980 (1981) ISBN 9780872861251
White Shroud Poems: 1980 - 1985 (1986)
Cosmopolitan Greetings Poems: 1986 - 1993 (1994)
Illuminated Poems (1996)
Death and Fame: Poems 1993 - 1997 (1999)
