VCCS Litonline Introduction to Literature
English 112 (English Composition II)

 Click on this B-17 to read the poem. Page 6 of 9 pages

So What's This Poem?

Considering the ideas on the previous page, how would you classify "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"?

It's a closed-form poem.

It's an open-form poem.

It's a poem with some closed features and some open--but with a 20th-Century perspective on the world.

 

Closed vs. Open

The poem does use alliteration in the first four lines ("fur froze"), each line does start with a capital letter, and there's even one rhyme ("froze" and "hose"). But the lines have different numbers of syllables with extra unstressed (quieter) syllables, so the rhythm is anything but regular. An irregular rhythm fits the situation: Why should a dead person speak as if everything were fine?

Literary analysts characterize Jarrell as a "postmodernist," usually emphasizing that he didn't totally share the hopelessness of the modernists even though he saw the same worldwide and individual violence that they did. Not until preparing this lesson did I realize that Jarrell uses the conventional aspects of poetry mentioned above to make the first four lines deceptively ordinary, almost quaint. Although the last line of the poem begins with a capital letter, the alliteration of f sounds ends and so does the imagery.

Let's look at the poem's imagery and theme while piecing together a deeper understanding of the poem--beyond its literal happenings--by returning to selected phrases that now stand out in a second reading.

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