By Dudley Randall
The Ballad of Birmingham is a poem about the bombing of the 16th street baptist church in Birmingham Alabama in 1963. This poem tells the story of a little African American girl who wished to go to a freedom march, but her mother told her that the streets are no place for an innocent little girl so she sent her daughter to church. This poem uses a variety of different writing techniques but all are simple, the reason this is such a simple poem is because Dudley Randall wanted everyone to be able to read and understand it.
One of the techniques Dudley Randall used was the change between dialogue and narration, the poem started with the little girl asking her mother if she could go out to the freedom march.’ “Mother dear, may I go downtown Instead of out to play, and march the streets of Birmingham. in a freedom march today.’ This use of dialogue shows the girl’s innocence. Dialogue is used to show emotion. When the poem switches to the narration at the start of stanza five it explains what is happening and does not have as much emotion. In the final line, it changes back to dialogue to show the mother’s emotion.
Dudley Randall also uses alliteration and assonance which speeds up your reading. Assonance is where the rhythm of the poem speeds up ‘No, baby, no you may not go’ this is an example of assonance. Alliteration also can speed up the poem but it is also used to show emotion for example ‘Her eyes grew wet and wild’ this draws to the mum’s grief. The use of these techniques help give the poem a flow with the different speeds and emotional highs and lows.
Metaphors are also used in this poem, an example of a metaphor is ‘for the dogs are fierce and wild’. The dogs are referring to white supremacy and hate groups like the KKK, also to the police brutality. The fierce and wild is showing that these hate groups are out of control and will do anything to stop the rise of African American rights like bombing a church.
This poem uses many different techniques but still is simple to read and to understand the message it sends. This poem was written to tell the story of the 16th Street Baptist church bombing and to give awareness about what happens to African Americans. This poem was written 57 years ago but there is still a need to show awareness and protest about what happens to African Americans today that is the Black Lives Matter movement is, it shows that after all this time there is still injustice and hate towards the African Americans.
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