The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner-Randall Jarrell

 Firstly, I’m not sure why, but I really like the title, although I didn’t know what a ball turret gunner was when I began reading. I’m not a huge fan of sad or depressing poetry, but I like this one. Overall, it was heavy. It’s only five lines, but manages to leave the same impact that other poems do in entire stanzas. The author lays the depression on thick, describing a cold, horrible experience and subtly guiding readers’ minds towards abortion. You have this picture of a shivering, terrified little man going in and out of consciousness in the belly of a fighter jet, then meeting his death and being unceremoniously sprayed from the vessel with a hose. It’s awful, as if the author was already kicking you while you were down, then you’re hit with the last line and it gets even worse. The shock impact is high and the horrors of war and death are clear. I thought it was really good. 


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