Losses
‘‘Losses,’’ by American poet Randall Jarrell, was
first published in Jarrell’s second collection of
poems,Little Friend, Little Friend, in 1945. In
that year, World War II ended, and the poems in
that collection are war poems. The title refers
to the code that bomber crews used to call in
fighter planes over their radios. The speakers in
‘‘Losses’’ are the young airmen who made up the
American bomber crews in the war, flying their
B-17s, B-24s, and B-29s over Europe and Japan
in an effort to destroy the enemy’s ability to
continue the war. The title refers to the many
deaths that resulted from these bombing raids,
not only of the airmen themselves but also of the
people in the cities on which the bombs fell.
Jarrell is considered the finest American poet to
write about World War II, and ‘‘Losses,’’ with its
unusual presentation of the way the young air-
men think and feel about the tasks they have
been called upon to perform, is representative
of his work in this area.Author Biography
American poet and critic Randall Jarrell was born
on May 6, 1914, in Nashville, Tennessee, the son of
Owen and Anna Campbell Jarrell. The family lived
in California from 1915 until Jarrell’s parents sep-
arated in 1925 and his mother returned to Nash-
ville with her two sons. Jarrell showed an interest
in writing and drama while at school, after which166
RANDALL JARRELL
1945