Remember the scene in the movie Contact when the Jodi Foster character is being swirled through space? The craft she is in pauses between wormholes and she stares at the vast and imponderable beauty of the cosmos. "Oh," she says, breathless, speechless (and weightless), "they should have sent a poet. . . ."

There are times when we think we cannot put our feelings and ideas into words. Some of us turn to religion, politics, or philosophy to look for ways in which to express ourselves. Some of us turn to poetry. Somehow, language that poets find in themselves -- that they can share for us -- can captivate, enlighten, and lead us to a better understanding of the world -- or help us articulate our grief, ponder on the meaning of our lives, or simply tap dance a joyful rhythm in our hearts.

While some poems can move us with their lyrical intensity, others can shock us with political sentiment, outrage, or intention. Here's the most outspoken anti-war poem I've ever seen (not to mention the shortest); and, like all the fiercest poetry of this genre, it was written by someone who was there. It's Randall Jarrell's observations on the Second World War.

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,

and I hunched in its belly til my wet fur froze.

Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of flight,

I woke to black flack and the nightmare fighters.

When I died, they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

Now, in this short poem, we see a wealth of detail. The title, of course, is crucial and here is the note Jarrell provided for anyone who might not understand what a ball turret gunner is and where he operated: "A ball turret was a plexiglass sphere set into the belly of a B-17 or B-24 bomber and inhabited by two .50 caliber machine-guns and one man, a short, small man. When this gunner tracked with his machine-guns a fighter attacking his bomber from below, he revolved the turret; hunched upside-down in his little sphere, he looked like the foetus in the womb. The fighters which attacked him were armed with canon firing explosive shells. The hose was a steam hose."

The first line can be perplexing for students. "From my mother's sleep I fell into the State" elicits some very tentative interpretations. So I ask why the word State is capitalized (I started doing this after one kid suggested that the line might mean "since my mother was asleep, I entered that state, too -- I fell asleep"). Ascertaining that the word "State" doesn't refer to REM sleep or the State of Nebraska, it becomes clear that the idea of governmental authority is responsible for the speaker's fate, and that his mother might not be asleep, but rather the "sleep" is in fact his months in the womb.

From one womb to another -- he hunches in the "belly" of the plane, like a tiny foetus with wet fur. Once this connection is made, the rest becomes clear for students, and the nightmare quality of the ball-turret gunner's death becomes synonymous with the act of an abortion: "when I died, they washed me out of the turret with a hose."