Favorite Poems --> "Ballad of Birmingham" by Dudley Randall

"Ballad of Birmingham" can be found on page 1072 of the Norton.

This poem is divided into eight stanzas with every second and fourth line of each stanza rhyming. I chose this poem as a favorite because it had a plot line and I was interested until the very end. Also, the poem drew sympathy from me over an event that I had no idea about, the bombing of an Alabama church. The fact that the first four stanzas are dialogue are between a mother and her young daughter give the poem a warm feel. The narrator in the next four stanzas distances the reader from the events, but the emotional attachment to the little girl is still present. The repitition of "No baby,no, you may not go" forebodes the fact that something awful is about to happen. It is also ironic that the girl was instructed to go to church because the streets of Birmingham are "fierce and wild", and she ended up dying. Randall's descriptive diction allowed me to feel like I was on the scene. The description of the mother "clawing through bits of glass and brick" put a clear image in my head of a frantic daughter searching for any hope of her daughter still being alive. All in all, I enjoyed this poem because it was easy to read but still drew emotions from me.