"A Supermarket in California"; "America"; "In the Baggage Room at Greyhound" -- Allen Ginsberg

All three of Allen Ginsberg's poems, "A Supermarket in California", "America", and "In the Baggage Room at Greyhound" seem to give an overly depressing tone as to what the typical American feels everyday. "A Supermarket in California" gives a very descriptive, yet odd, representation of an average supermarket; the narrator seems to tell of this trip as if he is in a dream, and it seems that he must fantasize his world to stay out of depression. The final paragraph of the poem gives the reader a sense that the narrator feels that his world is a living hell as he alludes to Charon, who was the ferryman to the underworld, and also the waters of the river Lethe, one of the five rivers of the underworld. "America" just seems to be an odd poem outlining the many problems of American society, its government, and its workforce. This poem did not interest me that much. "In the Baggage Room at Greyhound" gives a depressing look into what an American with a low-paying job had to deal with. It talks about the hardships of the job and how poorly the employee was taken care of. All of these poems have a depressing tone to them, and I wonder if the author had struggles with depression and drug use based off the way he jumps from topic to topic in his poems.