Literary Devices In The Ballad Of Birmingham

Clarity of how the poem is written helps the reader’s understanding of Dudley Randall’s “The Ballad of Birmingham,” which is based on the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama during the Civil Rights Movement. In this poem, a child asks her mother if she may go on a freedom march, which is known to be a dangerous event, and the mother says the child may not go but may, instead, go to church, a perceived safe haven. The church is then bombed and the little girl dies tragically. The reader is able to get a better understanding of how gruesome and tragic the bombing was through the point of view, simple diction, and nursery rhyme rhythm. In this poem there are three speakers that all give a different point of view of this horrific event during the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham, …show more content…
The poet uses a rhyme for every other line: “The mother smiled to know her child / Was in the sacred place, / But that smile was the last smile / To come upon her face” (21-24). The rhyme pattern gives a sweet flow to the poem that pulls the reader along because although what is happening is devastating, the rhyme keeps innocence. Because the poem is supposed to be read aloud to anyone young or old, the fact that the poem is rhythmic keeps listeners or readers interested to continue. The easiness of the rhyming flow in the poem makes the difficult information easier to swallow for the readers than if it was more serious because when something is written playfully they do not always catch the deeper meaning at first. The childishness of a nursery rhyme can easily be seen as irony considering that the topic of the poem is quite serious as a relevant event in history. The rhyming does an exceptional job at making it where anyone can understand about the horrific history of the