Filling Station

Filling Station by Elizabeth Bishop p. 33-4

There are a lot of repeated words in this poem: Dirty, oil, station, wicker, color, doily, taboret, somebody and why are all repeated at least once, and dirty is repeated four times. There is repetition also in the mention of the "extraneous plant" in stanza five, and also in the sound of the line in the last stanza "ESSO-so-so-so." The speaker sets this scene of the dirty oily gas station and then asks why the plants and the doilies on the taboret (a stool or similar piece of furniture). And who is watering (or oiling--this is funny) the plants and arranging the poetic cans. This must be the person who, in the last line, "loves us all." The repetition of "somebody" in the last stanza changes the emphasis and makes us wonder about this person who is and how the setting of the filling station is changed by him or her. There are as many repetitions of "somebody" as there are repetitions of "dirty" which make them both important but the poem starts with the "dirty" (triggering subject) ends on the "somebody" (the actual subject).