“Prodigy” by Charles Simic (1999)

Charles Simic is a Serbian American poet who was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1938. He is known for his originality and has won numerous awards, including a Pulitzer Prize for his poetry collection, The World Doesn’t End. In “The Prodigy,” Simic takes an innocent and happy childhood memory of learning how to play chess and juxtaposes it with the horrors of his upbringing in Belgrade and Yugoslavia during WWII. In this poem, an image of chess prodigies blindfolding themselves is connected to the poet’s mother shielding his face from seeing the violence in the streets of his hometown. This poem shows how children seek sanctuary from the chaos and destruction of war but always feel the effects of such events.

“The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” by Randall Jarrell (1980)

Randall Jarrell was an American poet, children’s author, and literary critic who was born in Nashville in 1914 and died in 1965. He won a National Book Award for his poetry book, The Woman at the Washington Zoo. He is famous for his clear, compressed style, and is especially well-known for his poetry inspired by his experiences as an Air Force training navigator during World War II.