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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Randall Jarrell
Randall Jarrell
Randall Jarrell was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1914. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees from Vanderbilt University. From 1937 to 1939 he taught at Kenyon College, where he met John Crowe Ransom...
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FURTHER READING
Lesson Plans
The Literature of War
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The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner  
by Randall Jarrell

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.



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From The Complete Poems by Randall Jarrell, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. Copyright © 1969, 1996 by Mrs. Randall Jarrell. Used with permission.
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