In some sense, Allen Ginsberg’s poem, “A Supermarket in California,” is reminiscent of poetry by Walt Whitman.
This similarity is obviously not accidental, as Ginsberg invokes Whitman several times throughout the poem. This invocation even includes a reference to Garcia Lorca, a poet who wrote an ode to Whitman. The use of long lines and frequent use of exclamation points create a stylistic self-awareness that is almost uncomfortable to the reader, as if Ginsberg is attempting to be Whitman somehow.This possibility is also suggested by Ginsberg’s statement that the narrator is “shopping for images,” (line 3), as if unsatisfied with he ordinarily sees. This line, followed by a series of lines written in Whitman’s style might indicate that the imitation is more than flattery on the part of the narrator.
And yet, the imitation of Whitman is incomplete. While Whitman wrote largely of nature and of metaphysical things in a realistic fashion, Ginsberg’s poem is entirely fantastic.The poet’s imagination places Whitman in the supermarket with him in “solitary fancy, tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy” (Ginsberg line 7). Perhaps Whitman has even passed somewhat into myth for Ginsberg, given that he places Whitman in the mythological place of the dead.
Even in this final line, however, the reader is made to feel uncomfortable. Ginsberg has apparently mislabeled the river upon which Charon rides, which almost seems an embarrassment in an otherwise well-crafted poem.The shift between the modern and the classical images is too abrupt, however, making for a third aspect of discomfort in the reader. In writing “A Supermarket in California” Ginsberg has written an interesting poem. It is not, in my opinion, one of his best poems. It is too self-conscious stylistically and too mixed in its fantastic imagery to be considered such a poem.
While interesting, it is not a particularly readable or enjoyable poem, at least not for this reader.
