Which Beat poet wrote the 1956 poem “A Supermarket in California”?

Allen Ginsberg wrote the 1956 poem “A Supermarket in California.” It is one of his best-known short poems and an important example of Beat poetry’s blend of personal reflection, American cultural criticism, and surreal imagery.

The poem imagines Ginsberg wandering through a supermarket at night and encountering Walt Whitman, the nineteenth-century American poet. Through this imagined meeting, Ginsberg considers desire, loneliness, consumer culture, and the differences between Whitman’s era and contemporary America.

“A Supermarket in California” is often discussed alongside Ginsberg’s “Howl,” but it is a separate poem with a quieter, more conversational structure. Both works helped establish Ginsberg as a major Beat poet, although “Howl” became the more famous public controversy.

The poem appeared in Ginsberg’s 1956 collection Howl and Other Poems, published by City Lights Books. The supermarket setting and Whitman reference make it especially memorable, while the poem’s candid treatment of sexuality reflects Ginsberg’s recurring themes.