Ballad of Birmingham by Dudley Randall

In the poem Ballad of Birmingham, Mr. Randall uses of element of paradox to illustrate the incidents of the mother’s verdict, and also her concern for the benefit of her beloved young child. It looks peculiar that this kid would even be acquainted with what a freedom march is, but this would be deemed ordinary back in 1960's, when Mr. Martin Luther King Jr. had meetings and protest marches to free the African American inhabitants from inequity and isolation. I feel the mother would be the one who would covet to land at the march to free her populace, not the child.In the first canto element of absurdity is used so as to make reading the poem more mesmerizing. The circumstance in this first stanza is also vital. The little child is in a worried situation and wants to assist better the lives of the African Americans. The spokesperson is letting the reader to construct an element of visualization of one fussy march in Birmingham. But, you realize plus I, that with peace processio ns and gatherings come aggression and resentment. This is truly what the little girl’s mother is scared of; this is why she will not permit her to attend the march.Moreover, one more thing that strikes me as a hilarious element is that her mother dresses her daughter in her best attire to go to cathedral with her. The narrator's style explains the reader the delight and joy that the mother obtains in her child's appearance. Something else that is sarcastic transpires in the 6th stanza. The mother smiled to make out that her child was in the holy place, but that contentment was the final smile to appear on her face. This stanza is sardonic because if the mother deems her daughter is going to be in a sacred place, why would this be the ultimate moment she would ever smile?First, there is a touch of childishness in the first stanza. The little child tries to perform good and childlike to her mother, in the case that her mother could allow her to reach to the march. Secondly, the re is the sense of worry for her child's wellbeing. After that, there is the tone of pleasure in the 5th verse and in the first portion of the 6th stanza. Her mother receives satisfaction and joy in getting her offspring ready to go to Minster. She is also cheerful that her darling child is going to church rather than leaving to the march.But, if you observe, in the 7th stanza that tone of elation at once converts to angst and lonesomeness. The mother does not recognize what to accomplish. The mothers tone in the ending lines of the poem presents the reader a sentiment of unhappiness and culpability. The term baby the mother exploits connotes the mother’s warmth for her missing daughter. I don't know how, but for any explanation her mother thinks that something has happened to her baby, so she jogs through the roads of Birmingham, Alabama calling for her daughter. She clawed through fragments of glass and brick, and then picked out her child's shoe.From this finding the mothe r discerns that she has lost her daughter eternally. To sum up, for my part this poem was brilliantly written for the simple truth that Randall is not frightened to brazen out the problems that these two civilizations had amid them. He portrays things that had happened in this stretch of time to convey his point vibrantly to the reader. Works Cited Randall Dudley, Ballad of Birmingham, (1969), on the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963, retrieved on December 7, 2006 from http://www. ctadams. com/dudleyrandall4. html