{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"145: Allen Ginsberg: "A Supermarket in California"","description":"This week on StoryWeb: Allen Ginsberg\u2019s poem \u201cA Supermarket in California.\u201d In so many ways \u2013 both in his poetry and in his interviews \u2013 Allen Ginsberg made clear that he owed a great debt to Walt Whitman. Indeed, Ginsberg\u2019s most famous poem, \u201cHowl,\u201d stands as a nearly direct response to Walt Whitman\u2019s \u201cSong of Myself,\u201d published in 1855, a century before \u201cHowl.\u201d But perhaps nowhere does Ginsberg make their kinship clearer than in his 1955 poem \u201cA Supermarket in California.\u201d In what seems at first a light-hearted, whimsical poem, Ginsberg imagines walking the aisles of a grocery store with the famed poet, the American bard. Ginsberg addresses Whitman directly in the poem\u2019s opening line: \u201cWhat thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman.\u201d The reader doesn\u2019t need to guess or infer that Ginsberg has Whitman in mind. Of course, Ginsberg often acknowledged his poetic debt to Whitman. Both here and in \u201cHowl\u201d (and in many other poems), Ginsberg builds on Whitman\u2019s explosion of the poetic line. Where Whitman sounded his \u201cbarbaric yawp over the roofs of the world,\u201d Ginsberg howled, nearly rending his garments in despair and anguish over witnessing \u201cthe best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked.\u201d Good enough. Ginsberg was influenced, strongly, by Whitman\u2019s poetry. But there\u2019s so much more to \u201cA Supermarket in California,\u201d so many ways Whitman is a \u201cdear father,\u201d a mentor to Ginsberg. For Ginsberg was a gay man in 1950s America, a dangerous time and place to embrace one\u2019s homosexuality. In this poem, Ginsberg recognizes that Whitman can teach him more than how to open up a poetic line, how to catalog what he sees as he steps inside \u201cthe neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!\u201d No, Whitman \u2013 whom Ginsberg calls at the poem\u2019s end the \u201clonely old courage-teacher\u201d \u2013 sets an example for how to embrace one\u2019s sexuality in a culture that is buttoned up, that does not talk about sex much less delight and revel in it openly. Just as in \u201cA Supermarket in California,\u201d Ginsberg made clear in numerous interviews that Whitman showed him the way to be a truly American poet and how to be a gay man in America. Particularly moving is the Voices and Visions episode on Walt Whitman, which features Allen Ginsberg discussing his poetic and personal debt to Whitman. If you don\u2019t want to watch the video, you can read a transcript of Ginsberg\u2019s comments at the Allen Ginsberg Project website. As you listen to Ginsberg read \u201cA Supermarket in California,\u201d be sure to appreciate the whimsy of imagining a stroll through the produce department with the \u201cgraybeard\u201d poet. Join Ginsberg as he notices the fruits and vegetables and the people who crowd the grocery store\u2019s aisles even at night: What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes! But be sure to appreciate also how Ginsberg pays homage to Walt Whitman as a personal role model. And just for fun, The Paris Review has a great illustration of Ginsberg and Whitman in the California supermarket! You can read \u201cA Supermarket in California\u201d online \u2013 or buy a copy of Howl and Other Poems, which includes the Walt Whitman grocery store fantasy. Visit thestoryweb.com\/supermarket for links to all these resources and to watch Allen Ginsberg introduce and read \u201cA Supermarket in California.\u201d And if you have Amazon Prime, you can stream an album titled The Beat Generation \u2013 Music & Poetry. Track 50 is \u201cA Supermarket in California.\u201d Surely, we want to read beyond the ending, when Ginsberg asks: Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight? Oh, how I long to join Walt Whitman \u2013 and Allen Ginsberg \u2013 as they walk the streets of America!                                                                                                                                                           ","author_name":"StoryWeb: Storytime for Grownups","author_url":"http:\/\/storyweb.libsyn.com\/webpage","html":"