Adorna, Misael
Casas, Vanessa
Garcia, Jezreel
Truong, Natalie
English 10
Period 3
Ballad of
Birmingham
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


EX:
BUT WAIT! Not every other line rhymes
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


Connotative:
 “Sweet” and “white”


Emphasize child’s innocence
“Sacred” and “children”


Ex. “fierce”, “wild”, “clubs”, “guns”
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