Tuesday, May 26, 2020

A Couple Of Brief Notes (now more) On Elizabeth Bishop’s Poem Filling Station

‪Filling Station   ‬

‪Elizabeth Bishop      ‬

‪Oh, but it is dirty!‬
‪—this little filling station,‬
‪oil-soaked, oil-permeated‬
‪to a disturbing, over-all‬
‪black translucency.‬
‪Be careful with that match!‬

‪Father wears a dirty,‬
‪oil-soaked monkey suit‬
‪that cuts him under the arms,‬
‪and several quick and saucy‬
‪and greasy sons assist him‬
‪(it’s a family filling station),‬
‪all quite thoroughly dirty.‬

‪Do they live in the station?‬
‪It has a cement porch‬
‪behind the pumps, and on it‬
‪a set of crushed and grease-‬
‪impregnated wickerwork;‬
‪on the wicker sofa‬
‪a dirty dog, quite comfy.‬

‪Some comic books provide‬
‪the only note of color—‬
‪of certain color. They lie‬
‪upon a big dim doily‬
‪draping a taboret‬
‪(part of the set), beside‬
‪a big hirsute begonia.‬

‪Why the extraneous plant?‬
‪Why the taboret?‬
‪Why, oh why, the doily?‬
‪(Embroidered in daisy stitch‬
‪with marguerites, I think,‬
‪and heavy with gray crochet.)‬

‪Somebody embroidered the doily.‬
‪Somebody waters the plant,‬
‪or oils it, maybe. Somebody‬
‪arranges the rows of cans‬
‪so that they softly say:‬
‪esso—so—so—so‬
‪to high-strung automobiles.‬
‪Somebody loves us all.‬

‪R:‬

‪The last line is wonderful.  An utterly surprising but perfect end.  It can mean, everyone is loved by someone including this unlovely bunch (a lovely idea even if not absolutely true), and someone up there must love us as we really need it.  And the earlier part is at once somewhat revolted, dismayed, etc. and also humorous, a nice mixture.  ‬

‪Me:‬

‪In the last verse the poet comes to see the station differently. “Somebody embroidered the doily” and “Somebody waters the plant.” That care at first isn’t apparent—just the opposite—but, still, not, it seems, without a touch of sardonicism: “or oils it maybe.” ‬

‪In the final lines the poet notes quite movingly how ‬

‪“...Somebody‬
‪arranges the rows of cans ‬
‪so they, softly say: ‬
‪esso—so—so—so”‬

‪So love is present here, in a woman’s touch‬.

‪The poet is moved to generalize: we all, each of us, have somebody who loves us. (We all don’t of course, but that’s what the poet here is moved to feel.) But who in this poem is this “somebody”? Mother and wife, likely, presumably. But, final bite, a woman who can’t be named the way “father” and “sons” can, rather just “somebody” in this man’s world of the filling station, but which is also a home.‬

‪Me: ‬

‪I wrote this to a friend about “somebody.”‬

‪.... I just more prosaically thought it was something about the depersonalization of the mother’s presence in this man’s world of the filling station and but that’s also a home, a depersonalization that’s ironically in inverse proportion to the only touches that give this world some loving, caring, softer “—so—so—so“ attention, a “woman’s touch” so to say, hence grace. So there’s some sardonicism in that too, at least as I read it....‬

‪Me:‬

‪A question might be whether “us all” is the collective all or means to specify us individually as in each of us. I plump for the latter and taking a page out of your approach to poetry I see it as the poet’s state of mind, obviously not empirically true, moved by the realization of the humble caring touches amidst all this single minded masculine mechanical preoccupation. ‬

‪I don’t myself see somebody as religious or theological as it links up with the previous somebody, a human someone, who has done these little domestic grace notes. ‬

‪Mind you I can see the possibility of a suggestion of a divine presence in that womanly, female, feminine, effort that basically remakes this world—the greasy, dirty filling station—into a better place. ‬

‪But isn’t there sardonic irony in that divinity, or less than divinity but still world remaking, as a depersonalized somebody—which also mind you has intimations of divinity— as opposed to the more specified “father” and “sons,” which also suggests the typical business name, “X and Sons,” but never daughters. ‬

‪P:‬

‪Well 'so-so-so'  seems to be a play on the brand name and a very clever imitation of a groom  calming horses, suggesting the way oil was  frequently added under the hood back in the day to calm car engines, capacity measured in horsepower, (time shift to  when cars were real cars with a temperamental throbbing engine as it thrummed away while being fueled in those pre switch-off and on ignition days.). The orderly display of Esso cans, neither the doing of the father bursting out of his costume suit nor of the greasy sons, implies control over what could be seen as the  urgent, barely contained power of car engines, smoothed by the lubricant. The irony throughout is the invisible presence of a caring female presence through the grace notes that both defy and feminise the brusque chaos of male industrial activity, as you mention above Itzik. ‬

‪Me:‬


‪Perceptive and well said.‬

‪I read the —so—so—so as fusing the brand name with what exactly somebody does in softening, calming and garnering something a little bit aesthetic out of the commercial environment, a kind of synthesis, if you will, of the masculine grease, dirt and mechanics and the feminine grace notes in action. ‬

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