America’s Consumer Society in Ginsberg’s “A Supermarket in California”

Allen Ginsberg’s “A Supermarket in California” is a hilarious approach to condemning today’s consumer culture by comparing it to the appreciation of the natural and organic in Walt Whitman’s time. The preface of this poem, is Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. Leaves of Grass is one the best examples of organic poetry depicting the beauty of nature, specifically that of America.

In Ginsberg’s “A Supermarket in California”, Walt Whitman shops a modern day supermarket and is appalled by the easy convenience and abundance of food and necessity of today’s consumer culture. Ginsberg even takes a crack at Whitman’s supposed homosexuality.

The poem begins:

“What thoughts have you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I

walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headahce self-concious looking at the moon…”

Ginsberg goes on to  narrate how Walt Whitman would view a 21st century supermarket, humorlessly depicting Whit gawking at the grocery boys, wondering who and how the meat was killed and what the price of bananas may be. Ginsberg wittily depicts a foreigner’s perception of the excessive material and need of today’s consumer culture.

“I saw you Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eying 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.”

The final stanza is the most thematic in terms of the overall meaning of the poem. In the land of Thoreau, Emerson and Whitman… there was purpose, meaning and a firm resentment for America’s growing commercialism and industrialism. The Transcendentalist writers called for political activism and a statement for living life by principle and reflection. By conjuring up images of Whitman, Ginsberg is asking the same for the 21st century. A return to principle, a return of spiritual truth and self-reliance. Ginsberg suggests, by the mere example of the modern grocery store, that we are far beyond living within our means–and seeks the spirituality and truth of the transcendentalist writers to return us.

“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 blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?”

Ginsberg is suggesting that the truth and self-reliance is lost within America– and even merely touching Whitman’s work in a supermarket feels absurd. Ginsberg suggests that man was not meant to be overwhelmed by the mechanical concept of life, the automobiles, consumerism– but meant for the organic, spiritual thought and truth.

Ginsberg does not provide an answer for how to return to the romantic and transcendentalist view of life, but by suggesting we are lost, and turning to Whitman– it is clear that the answer is in the past not the present, as we move closer and closer to a governmental dependent, non individualistic culture which is obsessed by the image or representation and not the truth.

If you’ve never heard a Ginsberg performance I highly recommend it:

-Cvirginia

~ by cvirginia on August 5, 2009.