Meditations in a Filling Station

                There were two poems that caught my eye as I read them, because they used different styles completely to portray more than a place. The description of their surrounding a much deeper meaning that hooked me simply because it made me feel something.

                First and foremost, the differing sentences in “Filling Station” caught my attention. The author instantly begins the poem using assonance with the repetition of the letter “o,” “Oh but it is dirty! ...oil-soaked, oil-permeated…over-all.” This simple language describes the gas station and therefore the last sentence ends up being more dramatic. Following that description with “Be careful with that match!” adds a sense of urgency to the poem, especially since it’s strategically placed at the end of the stanza. The reader can only imagine what would happen if a match is lit in a gas station that is soaked with oil. Furthermore, the exclamation mark catches my attention, since it is so rarely used. Furthermore, the author includes many questions such as “Do they live in the station?” to begin a stanza. This opens up the conversation to describe the surroundings by describing the people that inhabit it. More questions are later brought up that make up a whole stanza, to be answered later. And all of these questions are asking why, to not receive a sure response, but mere maybes.

                The structure of “Meditations at Lagunitas” I thought was ingenious. The poem has no stanzas. However, the sentences break right in the middle in order to create a very dramatic pause. Words such as “erases,” “justice,” “woman,” “holding,” “her,” stand alone in one line. These words read together, without the context of the poem, can make a sentence on their own. That leads the readerto understand the comparison between remembering this woman and remembering the land. Furthermore, there is the alliteration of the letter “b” throughout the poem, for instance “that black birch” and “the bramble of blackberry.” The author even chooses to repeat the word blackberry three times to end the poem. And it leaves me questioning why.  To the author, simple details such as a mere blackberry are what makes up the general memory of lagunitas. He states “it hardly had to do with her” instead he remembers details about her small shoulders and what she did with her hands. At the end, memory becomes unclear and the details are what keeps the old thinking from getting lost.