Part III, Chapters 16–17: "A Supermarket in California" by Allen Ginsberg

Ginsberg was part of the Beat movement, a group of artists in the 1950s disinterested in mainstream conventions. In this poem, Ginsberg fantasizes about spending time in a supermarket with nineteenth-century poet Walt Whitman, one of his greatest influences. Read the poem here.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. self-conscious
    excessively aware of your appearance or behavior
    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.
  2. fatigue
    temporary loss of strength and energy from hard work
    In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
  3. enumeration
    a numbered list
    In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
  4. penumbra
    a region of light shadow around the darkest part of a shadow
    What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night!
  5. solitary
    lacking companions or companionship
    We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.
  6. fancy
    a false idea or illusion that is the product of imagination
    We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.
  7. delicacy
    something considered choice to eat
    We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the cashier.
  8. odyssey
    a long wandering and eventful journey
    (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.)
  9. absurd
    inviting ridicule
    (I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.)
  10. ferry
    a boat transporting people or vehicles over a body of water
    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?
Created on Mon Nov 27 19:20:03 EST 2017 (updated Mon Jun 07 14:39:20 EDT 2021)

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