Ginsberg's work created much reaction in the fifties, to the extreme that his poem Howl was the subject of an obscenity trial in San Francisco in 1956.

The poem was considered "immoral, in its expression of Communist sympathies, overt eroticism, religious irreverence, images of drug culture, and general antagonism of nearly all things American".

Ironically, this poem's form is derived from the Hindu spiritual practice of mantra, which is an act of meditation that "aspires to reconciliation, not nihilism" (Para. 23).

Ginsberg's understanding of Hindu mysticism followed this line of thinking: the mantra (short verbal formula, which is repeated over and over as a form of prayer meditation until the words become pure physical sounds) in itself has magic or practical power "and that mere pronunciation of the mantra is a meritorious and mysterious art".

He believed that this practice leads to spiritual enlightenment and developed this idea in his poetry to the point of inventing his own mantra, "to create his own universe of spiritual ecstasy" (Para. 30).

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, García 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 a 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 automo- biles 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?

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