1a. What is the only "note of color" in the filling station?
2a. What creatures "worry" the barn?
3a. What is left to fill the barn in the winter?
4a. What details in "Filling Station" create an image of a dirty place? What contrasts to this image are offered at the end of the poem? What details in "A Deserted Barn" create an image of a lonely, desolate place?
5a. The last stanza of "Filling Station" provides a contrast to the rest of the poem. Describe that contrast. Similarly, the last stanza of "A Deserted Barn" causes the poem to change directions. How is that stanza different from the rest of the poem?
1b. How does this note of color compare with the rest of the filling station?
2b. How do those creatures affect the barn later in the poem?
3b. What does the speaker mean by this statement?
4b. What is the speaker's overall thought about the filling station? Why does the speaker in "A Deserted Barn" fear winter? In what way or ways do reflections fill the barn in winter?
5b. "Filling Station" ends with a passage that could change the reader's perception of the place. How is the impact of that ending different from the impact the ending of "A Deserted Barn" has on the reader? In what way might the two endings be similar?
Image and Imagery. Using your own paper, draw some of the images that come to your mind as you read each poem. Exchange your pictures with a classmate. Ask him or her to look at your drawings and describe the images he or she sees. How are these descriptions like or unlike the images you meant to represent?
"Filling Station"
"A Deserted Barn"
Irony. What examples of irony did you find in "Filling Station"? How does irony affect the impact of the poem? What is ironic about the creatures in "A Deserted Barn"?
Personification. Reread "A Deserted Barn." How would the poem change if personification was not used?
