A Ballad is one of the most popular forms of poetry. 'The ballad is a form of narrative poetry (tells a story) It often tells a story of tragedy.' (Lacie107) The poem Ballad of Birmingham written in 1969, narrates the tragic end of a small girl in the racial violence. The poem is written on the background of a bombing took place in 1963, at 16th Street Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama. 'The poem revisits the violence of the civil rights movement, in order to retrieve radical meaning from an extent, unifying crisis.' (Sterling 116) The bombing took away the life of four innocent girls. Around 20 other people were injured. The harsh reality of life is revealed by the poem. Life is not safe anywhere, not even in the sacred place that we call a Church. In the ballad, the poet Dudley Randall takes the theme from political unrest and racial hatred. Randall has always handles the political and social issues in his poetry. The poem connotes the racial hatred and its horrible consequences. The bombing took place out of the excessive hatred towards black people.
The poem is in the form of dialogues between a small girl and her mother. The girl wants to go to the Freedom March, but her mother is not ready to send her to the march. It is because she feels the place risky. Instead, she suggests her child to go to the church, which is the safe place.
No, baby, no, you may not go,
For I fear those guns will fire.
But you may go to church instead
And sing in the children’s choir (13 – 15)
The girl agrees and goes to the church. Soon after, the mother hears the news of bombing in the church that took away the life of her little girl.
The theme or the central idea of the poem is based on the authentic incident of bombing. The racial violence is so fierce and powerful that neither the mother's love, nor the sturdy walls of the church can protect the child from this violence and hatred. The people fight and take away the life of innocents just because their skin colour is different.
The poem has an ironic touch. The safest place becomes the trap of death. It’s like mother womb itself kills the child. While describing the unsafe atmosphere the poet says,
The mother smiled to know her child
Was in the sacred place,
But that smile was the last smile
The rhyming scheme of the poem follows the exact pattern of ballad which is abcb. It means that the first three lines do not rhyme with each other. The fourth line rhymes with the second line and thus the pattern becomes abcb.
The figures of speech such as metaphor, repetition are used by the poet to enhance the poetic effect. The daughter and the mother belong to the black family. The following stanza is a fine example of metaphor that connotes the black race of the child and her mother.
She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair,
And bathed rose petal sweet,
And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands,
And white shoes on her feet. (17 – 20)
One more figure of speech used here is repetition. The line ‘No, baby, no, you may not go,’ is repeated twice in the poem. The poem is the representation of innocence that is crushed by the violence. The girl is innocent. She is not familiar with the dark side of the world. She just wants to be with her friends and enjoy her life. Her innocence is indicated by the white colour. She wears white gloves and white shoes. The poet uses the expressions such as sweet, small to describe the innocence, and fierce and wild to describe the hatred spread everywhere outside in the society.
References
Dudley Randall The Ballad of Birmingham
Sterling Cheryl African Roots, Brizilian Rites: Cultural and National Identity in Brazil. Palgrave Macmillan Publishing 2012. print.
Lacie Christina How to Prepare for the CAHSEE – English Language Arts. Barron's Educational Series Publication. 2003. print.
