Supermarket in Califorina and Constantly Risking...

â€Å"A Supermarket in California† and â€Å"Constantly Risking Absurdity† Allen Ginsberg’s poem â€Å"A Supermarket in California† and Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s poem â€Å"Constantly Risking Absurdity† describe the struggle within to find beauty and self worth. Where Allen Ginsberg is lost in the market, desperately trying to find inspiration from Walt Whitman, Lawrence Ferlinghetti portrays the image of the poet frantically trying to balance on a high wire, risking not only absurdity, but also death. Both of these poems deal with their poet’s struggle to find meaning and their fears of failure. Where Ginsberg fears he will never find Whitman’s dream, Ferlinghetti fears falling off the high wire and being submitted to absurdity and death.†¦show more content†¦A society, as Tyrus Miller claims, is â€Å"an era of anti-Communist witch hunts, preprocessed food, television advertising, and nuclear bombs.† Ginsberg is inspired by Walt Whitman’s dream of a diverse society. Although he is inspired, Gi nsberg clearly lacks the confidence in himself and modern America to achieve this dream. He has many fears and displays them in numerous ways. The supermarket itself is a clausphobic environment, where store staff and imaginative detectives closely survey every move of the poet as he searches. In Whitman’s poems, there is an image of work and production, while Ginsberg’s poems show spending of money and consuming. In â€Å"Song of Myself† by Walt Whitman, he describes a butcher boy cutting meat in a market. While Ginsberg’s poem centers around a supermarket, where everything is prepackaged and ready to buy. This accentuates Ginsberg’s fear of a non tolerable society. His run in with Garcia Lorca, a Spanish poet who also admired Walt Whitman, is one of shock and fright. Garcia Lorca was killed by rebels during the Spanish Civil War, a fellow poet who died searching for Whitman’s dream. His discovery of Garcia is one of disbelief, â€Å"and y ou, Garcia Lorca, what were you doing down by the watermelons?† Garcia’s presence in this poem is intended to show the fate of those who fall off the high wire, foreshadowing the fate of Ginsberg if he does not