Allen Ginsberg

"A Supermarket in California"

Like many of Ginsberg's poems, this poem is written in a prose-like structure with full sentences.  The poet addresses Walt Whitman.  He expresses a longing for communion with Whitman.  He also mentions Federico Garcia Lorca (Line 4).  While in the supermarket, Ginsberg imagines that Whitman walks with him.  "A Supermarket in California" speaks of the desire to share life's experiences with a like-minded companion.  We deduce that Ginsberg must feel lonely or as if he has no one with whom to share his world.  He was gay as was Whitman and Lorca and never had a family life as an adult.  Ginsberg was also a creative thinker and perhaps had an acute sense of being different.  The language is colorful, whimsical, and unconventional as in the following lines "In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!" (Line 2).  In line 3, Ginsberg accuses Whitman of "eyeing the grocery boys."  The insinuation is subtle but from a gay reader's perspective, the implications are obvious.  While many types of audiences might have access to this poem and might read it, to me it seems to contain a coded subtext that speaks most to certain readers;  those readers who might have more in common with Ginsberg than the average reader in terms of politics, sexuality, and art.