"Vapor Trail Reflected in the Frog Pond", is a poem written by Galway Kinnell, a Pulitzer Prize winner who dedicated his life not just to writing, but also to actively defending the civil rights during the Vietnam War and opposing said war. One of the characteristics of most of this poet´s poems is the relfection on the inner workings of the human mind and spirit, more than the outward parts. In fact, he himself once said in an interview that he was the poet of the ugly, because he tended to make emphasis more on ugly aspects of life, nature and human beings than beauty or what was standard in poetry. One other characteristic of his poems is that he tended to mention and use topics of nature a lot and combined the human with the animal world to put forth his messages and meaning. In this particular poem, Kinnell explores the happenings in a natural setting and establishes a peaceful mood with the imagery of a pond and its inhabitants to later break that mood with the mention of the appearance of human actions, the SAC bomber´s vapor trail. This is why, for this particular excerpt, the correct response is D: It contrasts war and peace by describing a bomber against the backdrop of a peaceful setting.
