Randy Jarrell's Poetry

Randall Jarrell sounds like a man committed to his love of literature. His biography doesn’t mention the reason he was raised by his grandparents; I wonder if there were any happenings which led to his dedication and subject matter, of painful realism and change. Evidently his time spent in the air force presented some ideas for many of his poems. My brother-in-law, an avid lover of wartime aircraft and pilots, would love to have met him to hear his stories. I will introduce him to his poetry.

“Losses” and “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” are both poems which would have come from his time in the air force. Even though I don’t understand everything he is saying in his lyrics, I understand he is speaking of missions and flying. I think he is speaking of the swiftness of change among troops. Men go out on missions; some come back and some do not. They don’t have time to mourn. They have to quickly replace them and move on. Even though someone may physically die in a crash, they have already died psychologically in situations before. The missions just became a routine; something they had to do regardless of the toil it may have taken upon their emotions and senses. The five lines about the gunner, although short in nature, represents the reality and gruesomeness of wartime. This would have been a very dangerous assignment, with only some sort of glass between one and the ammunition of the planes seeking them out. The horror of the death of such a soldier is graphically described in the line talking of washing him out of the turret; after being hit by a torpedo in a gunner nothing would be left except bits and pieces to be washed out.

The poem “A Girl in a Library” was harder for me to understand. I was looking forward to reading this as I see my daughter as being this girl. She loves books and could find a lifetime of enjoyment and fulfillment spending her time there. I think he is talking of the many thoughts and dreams one could read about in the many books in a library. One could get lost and live a life of others’ experiences from the writings in the books on the shelves.