The Diameter of the Bomb

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1979

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Related Poems

“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. “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” is a short, five-line poem and one of Jarrell’s most famous poems. The poem describes a man’s birth, life, and death as a series of rests and awakenings, with the “dream of life” abruptly interrupted when he is in a ball turret fighting for his life. A ball turret was a small compartment with a machine gun located under B-17 fighter jets that was shaped like a womb, and the ball turret gunner’s role was to protect the B-17s vulnerable underbelly. Jarrell describes the man’s death with stark language, emphasizing the gruesome nature of war.

“We Lived Happily During the War” by Ilya Kaminsky (2013)

Ilya Kaminsky is a hard-of-hearing Ukrainian American poet. He was born in 1977 in Odessa, Ukraine emigrated to the United States with his family in 1993 and began writing poems in English shortly after. He is known for his political poetry, and his poetry collection, The Deaf Republic, was elected as a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His poem, “We Lived Happily During the War” emphasizes the indifference of people who live in comfort and security far away from war-torn countries. He highlights the sense of guilt, and contradictory inaction, of people living in the United States of America who “protest” but not enough, and who live “in the country of money,” where the pain and suffering around the world does not touch them.

“I, May I Rest in Peace” by Yehuda Amichai (2000)

“I, May I Rest in Peace,” published in his poetry collection Open Closed Open in 2000, explores Amichai’s thoughts on war and peace through another lens. In this poem, Amichai explores the meaning of the phrase “to rest in peace” in order to lament the life of constant tumult and challenge that characterizes human existence. He expands on the concept of war, mentioning the wars fought between nations as well as those fought between brothers, families, and within every human with their inner demons. Amichai returns at the poem’s end to the desperate desire for peace that unites all humans.

“War is Kind” by Stephen Crane (1899)

Stephen Crane is the famed author of The Red Badge of Courage. He was a journalist, novelist, and poet who was inspired by his experiences serving in the military during the Spanish-American War. In this poem, Crane uses repetition, irony, and imagery to depict the cruelty of war, juxtaposing the phrase “war is kind” alongside depictions of the violence and terror of war and its effects on soldiers, families, and countries.

Further Literary Resources

“Like a Prayer” by James Wood (2015)

James Wood, staff writer at the New Yorker and Professor of Literary Criticism at Harvard University, has written numerous books and essays on poetry and poetics. In this article, he reviews Amichai’s book, “The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). In this review, he discusses Amichai’s style and particularly his effectiveness at inventing metaphors that are “useful.” Wood also discusses how Amichai’s life as an Israeli man during a tumultuous era, his political views, and his complicated feelings toward religion and God have shaped his poetry. Wood explores the metaphoric and spiritual aspects of Amichai’s poetry and how this is connected to Amichai’s religious beliefs in adulthood.

“Introduction” from The Full Severity of Compassion: The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai by Chana Kronfeld (2015)

In this book, Chana Kronfeld, a poet and translator of Amichai’s works, conducts a literary study of his poetry, integrating biographical information, close readings of his work, and thorough scholarly research. She feels that the full visionary strength of Amichai’s innovations in poetry has been downplayed in recent years as his poetry has become translated into many languages. Instead, she wishes to emphasize Amichai as a critic of his times, calling attention to the political and poetic meanings hidden in his poems and their revelatory power. In the introduction to the book excerpted here, Kronfeld offers biographical information on Amichai but also argues that one should not become too focused on how his biography has influenced his poetry, as his poetry stands on its own for its metaphorical inventiveness. She states that Amichai is a revolutionary with a unique ability to weave the allegorical elements of mythology, religion, and politics within his deeply unique worldview and experiences.

Audio Interview with Yehuda Amichai by Poems to a Listener (1994)

In this audio interview, Henry Lyman, an American poet and the host of Amherst, Massachusetts based radio station WFCR’s series “Poems to a Listener,” discusses Amichai’s poetry. During this interview, Amichai shares the funny and heartbreaking stories that inspired his poems. This interview includes Amichai reading poems from his book, Collected Poems, and a discussion of the genesis of this poem in particular.