A Supermarket in California

A major theme in Ginsberg’s “A Supermarket in California” is the United States of America. Walt Whitman (the subject of Ginsberg’s poem) is one of the most well-known and influential poets in American history. Ginsberg grew up reading the poetry of Whitman, all of which was written around the mid-to-late 1800s. Much like Ginsberg later would, Whitman wrote poetry that was political in nature yet embodied with a free-spirited ruggedness that continues to define entire schools of American poetry. Ginsberg’s choice of Whitman alone suggests that the poem is thematically interested in America, or at the very least in inviting readers to make that association.

The title of the poem itself includes mention of one of the 50 states: California. While the word America isn’t mentioned overtly until the last two lines of “A Supermarket in California,” when it is mentioned, it is almost totally without abstraction. When Ginsberg’s speaker says “dreaming of the lost America” (Line 11) and “what America did you have” (Line 12), he is looking back, almost nostalgically, lamenting a less materialistic past and using Whitman as a guidepost to define that past. During Whitman’s lifetime, the Industrial Revolution saw massive changes throughout the Western world.