Losses Poem by Randall Jarrell

Losses

Rating: 3.7


It was not dying: everybody died.
It was not dying: we had died before
In the routine crashes-- and our fields
Called up the papers, wrote home to our folks,
And the rates rose, all because of us.
We died on the wrong page of the almanac,
Scattered on mountains fifty miles away;
Diving on haystacks, fighting with a friend,
We blazed up on the lines we never saw.
We died like aunts or pets or foreigners.
(When we left high school nothing else had died
For us to figure we had died like.)

In our new planes, with our new crews, we bombed
The ranges by the desert or the shore,
Fired at towed targets, waited for our scores--
And turned into replacements and woke up
One morning, over England, operational.

It wasn't different: but if we died
It was not an accident but a mistake
(But an easy one for anyone to make.)
We read our mail and counted up our missions--
In bombers named for girls, we burned
The cities we had learned about in school--
Till our lives wore out; our bodies lay among
The people we had killed and never seen.
When we lasted long enough they gave us medals;
When we died they said, 'Our casualties were low.'

They said, 'Here are the maps'; we burned the cities.

It was not dying --no, not ever dying;
But the night I died I dreamed that I was dead,
And the cities said to me: 'Why are you dying?
We are satisfied, if you are; but why did I die?'

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Susan Webster 25 July 2006

One of the great poems about the alienation of war, expressing particularly well the narrator's lack of life experience. He has nothing but high school to compare to the huge, all-encompassing experiences of war. His lack of any life beyond high school before he is sacrificed in the war increases his loss - he has lost all the potential of his life - and he doesn't really understand why he is making this sacrifice. Jarrell is, to me, the great poet of WWII, and a better poet at conveying the existentialism of the warrior than any of the great English WWI poets.

24 8 Reply
Krishnakumar Chandrasekar Nair 22 September 2013

It is not dying that we fear but the violence in our minds That makes the bombs we drop And keep the war machines in their grind

9 9 Reply
Bharati Nayak 02 January 2024

When we lasted long enough they gave us medals; When we died they said, 'Our casualties were low.'

0 0 Reply
Bharati Nayak 31 December 2023

Let me quote from this fine poem, 'They said, 'Here are the maps'; we burned the cities........And the cities said to me: 'Why are you dying? We are satisfied, if you are; but why did I die? '

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Bharati Nayak 31 December 2023

A soldier is also a human, an instrument employed to fight for either side.His death is only a number, his dead body may be found among the bodies whom he destroyed.(Part-2)

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Bharati Nayak 31 December 2023

Wars between Russia and Ukraine, between Israel and Palestine still causing extensive destruction of cities and human casualties.In this scenario where does a soldier stand? (Part-1)

0 0 Reply
Aftab Alam Khursheed 22 September 2014

Woes of war..Dying and not dying..If ruined cities they are witnessing the death due to human folly and rest Susan has described nicely

7 10 Reply
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