Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes

The poem's title alerts us to the simple contrast that is its subject. “Beautiful people” is perhaps written with a mild sense of irony - as this phrase was originally coined by the hippie movement in 1967 (maybe earlier) to refer to the “flower children” who shared the counter-culture ideals of peace and love. The couple in the poem are not beautiful people in this sense but wealthy and elegant.

The poem is deceptively simple - in places it is written as if in bright primary colours, so we read of the “yellow garbage truck” and the “red plastic blazers”, we get exact details of time and place, and we see the precise position of the four people: all waiting at a stoplight and the garbage collectors looking down (literally but not metaphorically) into the “elegant open Mercedes” and the matching couple in it. The details of their dress and hair could be directions for a film-maker.

Ferlinghetti contrasts the people in various ways. The wealthy couple are on their way to the man's place of work, while the “scavengers” are coming home, having worked through the early hours. The couple in the Mercedes are clean and cool; the scavengers are dirty. But while one scavenger is old, hunched and with grey hair, the other is about the same age as the Mercedes driver and, like him, has long hair and sunglasses. The older man is depicted as the opposite of beautiful - he is compared both to a gargoyle (an ugly grotesque caricature used to decorate mediaeval churches, and ward off evil spirits) and to Quasimodo (the name means “almost human”) the main character in Victor Hugo's novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

The poem moves to an ambiguous conclusion. The two scavengers see the young couple, not as real people, but as characters in a “TV ad/in which everything is always possible” - as if, that is, with determination and effort, the scavengers could change their own lifestyle for the better. But the adjective “odorless” suggests that this is a fantasy - and their smelly truck is the reality.

The poem also considers the fundamental American belief that “all men are created equal” - and the red light is democratic, because it stops everyone. It holds them together “as if anything at all were possible/between them”. They are separated by a “small gulf” and the gulf is “in the high seas of democracy” - which suggests that, with courage and effort, anyone can cross it. But the poet started this statement with “as if” - and we do not know if this is an illusion or a real possibility.

The form of the poem is striking on the page - Ferlinghetti begins a new line with a capital letter, but splits most lines to mark pauses, while he omits punctuation other than hyphens in compound-words, full stops in abbreviations and occasional ampersands (the & symbol).

The poem challenges the reader - are we like the cool couple or the scavengers? And which is better to be? Of which couple does the poet seem to approve more? TV ads may be “odorless” but without garbage collectors, we would be overwhelmed by unpleasant smells - especially in the heat of San Francisco. The garbage truck and the Mercedes in a way become symbols for public service and for private enterprise.

How does this poem show the gap between rich and poor?
Does the poet really think “everything is always possible”, or is this an illusion?
Why does the poet call the couple in the Mercedes “beautiful people”? How does he use this phrase in a different sense from what it originally meant? Does the poet approve more of the scavengers or the beautiful people?
What do you think of how the poem looks on the page? Does this help you as you read it?
Perhaps a modern society needs both architects and street-cleaners. But is it right that we should pay them so unequally? Which would you miss the most if they stopped working?