Ball Turret Gunner Randall Jarrell

The death of the ball turret gunner by randall jarrell about this poet poet and critic randall jarrell was born in nashville tennessee.

Ball turret gunner randall jarrell. Afterwards his remains are hosed out of the turret. Think of it this way. Hunched upside down in his. If you had to write something in prose dealing with the complexity and emotion of big subjects like life death and war it would take you way more than 5 sentences to get it done.

Hunched upside down in his little. The ball turret was a feature of the bomber aircraft a b 17 or b 24 made of plexiglass and set into the belly of the plane. Jarrell who served in the army air forces provided the following explanatory note. Warfare the death of the ball turret gunner title right from the start jarrell confronts the reader with ideas and images of war.

Randall jarrell s the death of the ball turret gunner is a five lined poem which narrates the equally short life of a ball turret gunner who is killed while in action firing shots from inside a ball turret of a bomber aircraft during a war encounter. As a child he spent time in los angeles where his grandparents lived and he would later write movingly about the city in the lost world one of his best known poems. The death of the ball turret gunner is a fantastic example of what poetry is capable of. When this gunner tracked with his machine guns a fighter attacking his bomber from below he revolved with the turret.

How does all the war and death in the title work with the poem s first line. Death and the gunner. The poet s own explanation of the poem was a ball turret was a plexiglas sphere set into the belly of a b 17 or b 24 and inhabited by two 50 caliber machine guns and one man a short small man. Randall jarrell wrote his poem the death of the ball turret gunner in 1945 having recently returned himself from serving in the army air force during world war ii.

Among other honors jarrell was awarded a guggenheim fellowship for the years 1947 48. Randall jarrell dʒ ə ˈ r ɛ l jə rel may 6 1914 october 14 1965 was an american poet literary critic children s author essayist and novelist. Randall jarrell s poem the death of the ball turret gunner can be found in many anthologies and is his most well known work published in 1945 it drew directly from his own involvement with military aircraft and airmen during ww2. He was the 11th consultant in poetry to the library of congress a position that now bears the title poet laureate of the united states.

A ball turret was a plexiglas sphere set into the belly of a b 17 or b 24 and inhabited by two 50 caliber machine guns and one man a short small man when this gunner tracked with his machine guns a fighter attacking his bomber from below he revolved with the turret.