In the 102 class I teach (comp and lit), I have a section of “conflict” poems. For me, it’s not enough to include all the old standards about love or death, identity, or the many in that fat anthology about animals. That’s too easy. “Conflict” types of poems are important to read as well. Among them…
* Hardy: The Man He Killed
* Owen: Dulce et Decorum est
* Reed: Naming of Parts
There are others, of course, that show different things, but mostly I want my students to get a close up look at _irony_. And the war poets do this well. But the one poem that most students say is the most dramatic of the bunch (and it’s the shortest), is Randell Jarrell’s “The Death of the Ball Turrett Gunner.” Here it is:
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 the 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.
Above all, I want my students to see what a poet can do with so little, yet expand significantly on such a terrible thing so simply and with such power. Most of my students are surprised to learn that many of the poems in this section of the course go back to WWI. Most say they liked the other poem sections of the course better, but the “conflict” section was important to see as well. I feel the same way most days, but sometimes the best poetry is about the most uncomfortable things.
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