Filling Station Themes

This "Filling Station" ain't pretty. We find out right away how dirty it is, and Bishop doesn't ever let it go. Of course some amount of grease should be expected in a filling station, whose main s...

Lo and behold, a family lives under that layer of grease. And things only get greasier with each passing day, as these folks continue to pour it into ailing automobiles on a daily basis. The "Filli...

On first read, the last line of "Filling Station"—"Somebody loves us all"—seems to come out of nowhere. The majority of the poem's energy is spent on depicting the overall trashiness of the pla...

The speaker of "Filling Station," believe it or not, admires this place. The admiration unfolds slowly, and even secretly, as if the speaker doesn't really want to own up to it. Bishop doesn't pull...