Text of Audio on Ginsberg's and Dove's Poems

Supermarket in California by Allen Ginsberg

                Allen Ginsberg, a famous Beat poet in California, writes of himself in this poem and his comparison of himself to Walt Whitman. [I have cautioned you in the past to not assume that the writer is writing about himself in a poem—this time he really is.] He is sort of channeling Whitman. Whitman, a poet of the Civil War era, was gay and was open about his life in several of his poems, which is rather startling since homosexuality was very much in the closet at that time. Ginsberg was also gay, so he was connecting mentally with Whitman in this poem written about 100 years after Whitman wrote. Both also wrote in free verse (no rhyme, no rhythm). The supermarket is a melting pot of the society since everybody has to eat. But maybe it is also a good place to be “eyeing the grocery boys.” [Line 4]  At any rate the one emotion he speaks of is loneliness. Poets are often lonely, and gay men may have their lonely moments, too, since being in any minority can make one feel isolated from the rest of the world. So the last line is especially poignant.

Parsley by Rita Dove

                “Parsley” is a perfectly named poem because it verifies with the title, the significance of the poem. Read the footnote of the poem to see that the Dominican Republic dictator Trujillo had 20,000 black cane workers killed because they could not say “perejil,” the Spanish word for parsley. They cannot roll the R’s. (Neither can I.) Obviously, the man was a monster; also, he was stupid since he had the people making him rich killed. But if you read carefully over the poem, you will see the things that tend to drive The General, as the dictator is called. He had a strange relationship with his mother, and he loves to kill people. The only other relationship noted is that of his parrot, who CAN roll his R’s.