ModPo 2013 #8 What Price America? On Ginsberg's "A Supermarket in California"

Image from dspace.mit.edu.

Note: I am currently taking a course on Coursera.org called Modern and Contemporary American Poetry taught by Al Filreis of the University of Pennsylvania. I will be posting my thoughts on the course discussions here.

A Supermarket in California

          What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for
I walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache
self-conscious looking at the full moon.
          In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went
into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
          What peaches and what penumbras!  Whole families
shopping at night!  Aisles full of husbands!  Wives in the
avocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, what
were you doing down by the watermelons?

          I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber,
poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing 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.
          We strode down the open corridors together in our
solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen
delicacy, and never passing the cashier.

          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?
          Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher,
what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and
you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat
disappear on the black waters of Lethe?

Berkeley, 1955  
From Collected Poems 1947-1980 by Allen Ginsberg, published by Harper & Row. 
Copyright © 1984 by Allen Ginsberg. Online source

I see the passage of time from 1855 (Whitman's "Song of Myself") to 1955  in Ginsberg's "A Supermarket in California." Whereas the "blab of the pave" describes very physical, very outdoor scenarios, Ginsberg's poem deals with an "inside" and an "outside" that describes the America of 1955.

"Inside" is inside the neon-lit supermarket. Inside the supermarket, we encounter the goods from the outdoors: tomatoes, peaches, avocados, watermelons. And these are not merely from the farms of America, these are from the farms of the world. I see this in the questions, "what price bananas?" He asks this not in the sense of "how much are these bananas?" he asks "what price?" which has heavier implications. Where did the bananas come from? Was the distribution of the bananas under the conditions of fair trade?

When Ginsberg says "never passing the cashier," I see here a rejection of the supermarket of America, a non-participation in the commerce. Instead, he chooses to follow this grubber that he has christened Walt Whitman outside, outside to where it is dark and after store-hours, outside where blue automobiles are within the driveways of suburbia. And...like WCW in "Danse Russe"...he talks about the loneliness (perhaps the loneliness of being an artist?) of being on the outside, late at night.

The last stanza talks about a lost America and about death. I think, here, he mourns the passing of an America in Whitman's time.

While America is real and thriving, America is also an idea. For many Filipinos, America is the American Dream. America comes at a price.

I look at this from 2013 eyes as well. The America that produced the supermarket in Ginsberg's poem continues to come at a price. There are rich countries and there are poor countries. There are rich countries that produce the biggest biological footprints and there are poor countries that live below the poverty line. And all of this, of course, comes from an idea, an idea about the pursuit of happiness, an idea about power and commerce and welfare and entitlement and capital. I see the loneliness of contemplating the silent cottage outside the spheres of supermarkets and automobiles in driveways.

I like his question: Dear Walt Whitman, dear courage-teacher, what America did you have when you passed?

What America was inherited by Americans? What America was inherited by this world?

I like looking at this from three levels: against the America of Walt Whitman, the America of Ginsberg, and my America (or America for me in 2013).

ModPo 2013 # 5 On The Dickinsonian, The Whitmanian, and Being Filipino

Stepping into experience

Note: I am currently taking a course on Coursera.org called Modern and Contemporary American Poetry taught by Al Filreis of the University of Pennsylvania. I will be posting my thoughts on the course discussions here.

Wow! First week done. Three Dickinson poems and one (very long) Whitman poem.

It's been an interesting week. I've been really busy and I would go home tired but still willing to read the assigned poem and watch the ensuing videos. I've never had this opportunity to go deeply into the works of particular poets and I love the experience.

I couldn't possibly conclude this week by pitting Whitman against Dickinson. I enjoyed the false binary between Dickinson and Whitman created in the video discussion but I ended up really appreciating the role of both poets in creating the path for future poets.

I have two things that I'm bringing up in this post. One: the enjoyment of poetry and two: writing poetry in English in the Philippines.

On The  Enjoyment of Poetry

I truly enjoyed Dickinson. I enjoyed her brevity and economy. I was annoyed by all the words that began with capital letters and all the confusing dashes. But I did remember writing a poem, way back, where I employed a capital letter for a noun. My teacher might have been just as annoyed. Was I influenced by Dickinson? I'm not sure. I'm an eclectic reader but I didn't really appreciate reading poetry books until after college.

I was particularly struck by "I dwell in Possibility." I realize that it is the kind of poem that I truly enjoy. And I liked the work of figuring out the puzzle of poetry = possibility and prose = the opposite of possibility. I also loved the powerful ending: For Occupation --this--/ The spreading wide my narrow hands/ To gather Paradise --. It reminds me that poetry is a worthwhile endeavor. It requires work,yes, but the work is rewarded with epiphany.

To my dismay, I realized I deplored Whitman. Maybe because his poem was soooo long. I wanted to sleep already. Yes, there was exuberance, yes, there was ecstasy. But at what cost? It was too tiring. As I wrote in another post somewhere: it was like reading a Facebook wall with random content.

But, there was a reward. The last section was priceless. On its own, it would probably the kind of poem that I would enjoy on a normal day. It starts beautifully, powerfully with that "barbaric yawp" and it ends tenderly, intimately with "I stop somewhere waiting for you." Absolutely beautiful.

All in all, I want the poetry I read to be succinct. Does that sound like I am going to be rooting for the imagists? I can't wait to get there.

Writing Poetry in English in The Philippines

Secondly, I am a Filipino writer who writes almost exclusively in English now taking up a course on American poetry. Well, UPenn can hardly be blamed. It's an American University. But on my end, I try to see how I can stretch the experience of this course into my own territory, into my own life. It's good to get into the history of the poetic form in America, after all, colonization did play a role in my own history. The generation of my grandparents were taught American poetry for sure and that affected the generations after. I am heavily influenced by the Western Canon. Some of my favorite poets are actually American: Robert Hass, Jane Hirshfield, Gary Snyder.

I am a conflicted writer because I do long to write in my native language but that opportunity has passed. English is my primary language. I think in English but my experiences are Filipino. Being a writer, I know the power of language. It creates experience and possibility for me just as much as the physical world informs my experience as a human being. Elsewhere, in another poem, I write about appropriating the language to be the medium of my expression as a Filipino. I don't know if I'm only justifying my experience. But it's a reality that I live with.

I once had a very interesting conversation with a friend of mine about the importance of being Filipino in my writing. I told him: "That's part of who I am. I cannot claim to come from elsewhere." And he answered that it was more important to be a human being, perhaps to be a citizen of the world. I took solace from that.

So, that's where I'm going to stand. As I go through this course, I understand that the poetry that I am reading is coming from a canon, coming from a pre-selection from an academic institution, coming from a tradition. But I will choose to look at it as a way to inform my being human, wherever I am and whatever my nationality or ethnicity. Poetry encompasses all of that. And I continue the challenge of writing...from wherever I am.

ModPo 2013 #4 The Payoff of Song of Myself by Walt Whitman

From openlibrary.org

Note: I am currently taking a course on Coursera.org called Modern and Contemporary American Poetry taught by Al Filreis of the University of Pennsylvania. I will be posting my thoughts on the course discussions here.

Before I begin, let me just state that the excerpt below is the payoff for reading Whitman.

An Excerpt from Song of Myself by Walt Whitman

52

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab
and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow'd wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

Let me confess that I remember reading Walt Whitman in the past but I must have been selectively reading because when confronted with all fifty-two cantos I was about to throw in the towel. Below are some of my written comments while I was attempting to read the poem in one night:

• Grass, grass, everywhere. I can't take it. It's like a Facebook feed. It's overwhelming! There's no structure! (Did I just complain about the lack of structure?)
• Is Whitman taking a jibe at capitalists or was he describing a capitalist? (commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest...spending for vast returns). 
• I can only take so much. Even my daughter fell asleep listening to me! 
• Canto 24: He even says his own name in his own poem! 
• A madman's poem!

Snippets, here and there, saved me from rushing to the end. Canto 31: "I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars." Canto 8: "What living and buried speech is always vibrating here, what howls / restrain'd by decorum." Wow!

Actually, he could have written only canto 52 and I would have been satisfied. It really does blow the mind, though. It takes a revolutionary mind, I guess, a madman of sorts to break convention as he did. Well, I'm glad he did.

In the video discussion, there is a brief mention of the difference between Waltman and Dickinson: democratic, inclusive, sensory vs. complex, difficult, open-ended. For me, there's no contest. There is a place for both in poetry. As for the poetry that I personally prefer, I couldn't write an effusive, 12,756-word poem (that's a novella!) nor could I appreciate a poem of that length in its entirety. I like more distilled works.  Well, that's just me.