Ballad of Birmingham Adorna, Misael Casas, Vanessa Garcia, Jezreel Truong, Natalie English 10 Period 3 By Dudley Randall

Poet  Name: Dudley Randall  DOB: January 14, 1914  Died: August 5, 2000 at age 86  POB: Washington D.C.  Born to: Arthur George Clyde and Ada Viola (eventually divorced)  Married twice.  Once in 1942 and again in 1957  Inspiration for “The Ballad of Birmingham” was to respond to the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama

Structure  8 Stanzas in total  4 lines per stanza  Quatrain  32 lines in total  Structure is straight forward  Easy to comprehend  Follows a ballad structure  Ironic with its plot twist ending

Meter  Types of meters used in the poem:  Poem consist of iambic tetrameter and trimeter  Alternating between tetrameter and trimeter  112 meters in total

Poem and Rhyme  Type of Poem:  Ballad  Narrative verse, which tells a story  Rhyme Scheme  second and fourth line of each stanza rhyme  first and third do not  BUT WAIT! Not every other line rhymes  EX: A - downtown B - play C - Birmingham B - today D - go E - wild F - jails E - child G - alone H - me I - Birmingham H - free

Theme  Racism  The poem takes place in the early 1960s  During that time there was the civil rights movement to end segregation  According to records, it was a member of the KKK who planted the bomb in a “negro” church  Irony  The child was sent to the church  The mother believe the church would be safer since the church is scared  In the end the child went missing because she was sent to the church

Tone  Poem goes through three stages of tone  Seriousness:  Stanzas 1 through 4  The mother is worrying for the safety of the child in the streets of Birmingham  Relief:  Stanzas 5-6  Ex. Line 21 and 22 “ The mother smiled to know her child, Was in a scared place,”  The mother is moved from a state of worry to a state of security to know that her child is safe in the walls of a church.  Tragedy:  Stanzas 7 through 8  The mother lost her child soon after she heard the explosion and the only remains she could find was the child’s shoe.

Diction  Denotative:  Author used words to put a negative tone on the streets of Birmingham  Ex. “fierce”, “wild”, “clubs”, “guns”  Connotative:  “Sweet” and “white”  Emphasize child’s innocence  “Sacred” and “children”  Emphasize “safety” of the church  Imagery  Ex. Stanza 5  The author describe what the little girl’s appearance to the church. (“White gloves,” “white shoes,” “combed and brushed her night-dark hair”)  Ex. Stanza 7-8  The reader is to imagine a frantic mother running through the streets of Birmingham  “Her eyes grew wet and wild. She raced through the streets of Birmingham”  The author then begins to describe the rubble as bits of glass and bricks.

Figure of Speech  Metaphor:  Ex. Stanza 5  “She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair, And bathed in rose petal sweet, And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands, And white shoes on her feet.“  Meaning the girl is pure and innocent.  Repetition/Refrains:  Ex. Line 5 and 13  “No, baby, no, you may not go,”  Ex. Line 3 and 11  “And march the streets of Birmingham”

The End Now clap