“Ode to the Gas Station” By Peter Herndon

Presented by Barbara Wallace

Oh gas station, your food is delicious.

You dazzle me with your worthless junk

(like foam cups and wooden license plates).

that I didn’t even know people made

Though your doughnuts are great, I hateyour bathrooms

Your customers stare at me and I tell them

(especially in Arkansas).

to shove it.

(someone could slip and die). When

someone walks into your bathroom,

they notice cuss words on your stalls.

Your floors are dangerous

Your outside toilets are

(the janitors are probably too scared

to go in them).

and will eat you at will. Yet you still

manage not to own a caution sign.

disgusting

Roaches roam the floor

Everyone steals, yet no one cares.

You sell dirty magazines behind your counter.

Although you have “chocolate drinks,”

chocolate milk would be better. Your employees

are weird.

or people who turn into werewolves

during full moons. You should beware

that some of them tried to eat me.

They are ex-cons, cannibals,

Your “employees only” room stinks.

It is just a room with cardboard boxes in it.

The workers always yell at us.

Yes, you do have downsides- oh, gas station-

but you are better than school.

Oh, gas station,

you are paradise.

Poetic ElementsPersonification- giving human characteristics to non-human things

Hyperbole- exaggeration for effect, something not meant to be taken literally

Alliteration- the repetition of consonant sounds

Internal Rhyme- rhyme that occurs within a line

Line 15-the roach will eat you at will

Lines 9- someone slip, 14-roaches roam

Lines 5:great-hate, 15:will-still Near Rhyme- words that have similar sound but do not exactly rhyme

Lines 8- your floors, 14- roaches roam

Analysis• The author in this poem describes a nasty sounding gas station- dirty, dangerous, & somewhat disturbing. Yet he would rather be there than in school. It resonates through free verse, which allows a rampant speech to reveal humor. As a juxtapose to school, which is moderately structured and supervised and clean, the gas station is unstructured and unsupervised (what would he be doing in the “employees only” room?), representing a sort of freedom that appeals to a lot of high school teenagers.

Bibliography• Herndon, Peter. “Ode to the Gas Station.” O.O.P.S. (Our Original Poems/Stories).

Vol. 1, Houston, Texas: Mr. Otremba, 2000. • Photographer unknown “sappho.jpg” [online] Available http://

www.northwestsecretplaces.com/.../ big/sappho.jpg 28 April 2004• Photographer unknown “gass.jpg” [online] Available http://

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www.pyramidbrokerage.com/ prop_w_all.html 28 April 2004• Photographer unknown “Ainaloa-76 gas station” [online] Available http://

www.bigisleproperties.com/ ainaloa_subdivision.htm 28 April 2004• Photographer unknown “sunoco_gas_station.jpg” [online] Available http://

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money.howstuffworks.com/ gas-price1.htm 28 April 2004• Photographer unknown “doughnuts.gif” [online] Available http://

www.cjnews.com/.../00/dec21-00/ food/food.htm 28 April 2004• Photographer unknown “specwraps2.jpg” [online] Available http://

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www.cjnews.com/.../00/dec21-00/ food/food.htm 28 April 2004• Photographer unknown “coolquenchers.gif” [online] Available http://

www.wincup.com/ coolquenchers.gif 28 April 2004• Photographer unknown “queenlic.jpg” [online] Available

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www.digisys.net/.../98-99/ Mar26/html/thumbs.html 28 April 2004• Photographer unknown “arkansas_sign.jpg” [online] Available http://

www.infoimagination.org/.../ arkansas_sign.jpg 28 April 2004

• Photographer unknown “staring.jpg” [online] Available http://artshole.co.uk/.../chris%20f%20clark/ staring.jpg 28 April 2004

• Photographer unknown “000224.gif” [online] Available http:// http://www.nightlightpress.com/checkerboard/archives.shtml

• 28 April 2004• Photographer unknown “huge_roach.jpg” [online] Available http://

www.quakeconpics.com/2001/ 2001-08-12/mvc-021s... 28 April 2004• Photographer unknown “filth.jpg” [online] Available http://

home.att.net/~toyletbowlbbs/ toilets2.htm 28 April 2004• Photographer unknown “Boy with chocolate milk.jpg” [online]

Available http:// www.uncg.edu/ses/courses/ compton/Gallery/images/ 28 April 2004

• Wallace, Linda. “boiling mud.jpg” [online] Available http:// www.linda.wallace.net.nz/.../ boiling%20mud.jpg 28 April 2004

• Photographer unknown “inmate_front.jpg” [online] Available http:// www-users.cs.umn.edu/~mcshane/ inmate_front.jpg 28 April 2004

• Photographer unknown “s1644.jpg “ [online] Available http:// www.earthforums.com/.../ posters-hannibal.shtml 28 April 2004

• Photographer unknown “p_moon.jpg “ [online] Available http:// www.redmoon.ws/bluemoon/images/ werewolf/p_moon.jp 28 April 2004

• Wallace, Barbara. “lightning” Paint. 2 May 2004• Wallace, Barbara. “paradise” Paint. 2 May 2004

Thank you.

Bibliography cont…