The rhyme scheme is A-B-C-B
"No, baby, no, you may not go, A
For the dogs are fierce and wild, B
And clubs and hoses, guns and jails C
Aren't good for a little child." B
The assonance in "Ballad of Birmingham" by Dudley Randall is the repetition of the short "a" sound in words like "bath," "class," and "last." This creates a musical and rhythmic quality in the poem.
The Ballad of Birmingham was created in 1969.
ballad, assonance, aliteration, and sibilance
An elegiac broadside
You can read the poem "Ballad of Birmingham" by Langston Hughes in his poetry collection "The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes" or on various online poetry websites and databases.
The characters in "Ballad of Birmingham" by Dudley Randall are a mother and her daughter. The mother is the one who eventually loses her daughter in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama.
Yes, the definition of ballad stanza fits the traditional ballad stanza in the "Ballad of Birmingham" because it follows the ABAB rhyme scheme and typically consists of alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and trimeter in quatrains. This structure is reflective of the traditional ballad form used to tell a narrative story with a strong lyrical quality.
The speaker in the poem "Ballad of Birmingham" by Dudley Randall is distressed because the mother sent her daughter to church for safety, only for her to be killed in a bombing. The poem reflects the tragedy and anguish of the Birmingham church bombing during the Civil Rights Movement in 1963.
Dudley Randall wrote the poem "Ballad of Birmingham" in response to the 1963 racially motivated bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, which killed four young African American girls. The poem reflects on the tragedy of the event and the impact of racism and violence on innocent lives.
Both "Theme for English B" and "Ballad of Birmingham" explore themes of race and identity. While "Theme for English B" focuses on the complexities of being a black student in a predominantly white academic setting, "Ballad of Birmingham" illustrates the devastation of racism through the lens of a mother's loss during the Civil Rights Movement. Both poems use imagery and symbols to convey the challenges faced by African Americans in the United States.
The poem "Ballad of Birmingham" by Dudley Randall criticizes the societal norms that perpetuate racial injustice and violence, specifically highlighting the impact on innocent children. The poem condemns the complicity of institutions that fail to protect children from the harsh realities of racism and injustice.
The poem "Ballad of Birmingham" by Dudley Randall is based on true events. It was written in response to the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, which killed four young girls. While the poem is a fictional account focusing on a mother and daughter, the tragic event it was inspired by did occur.
The shift between the two stanzas of the Ballad of Birmingham is from a peaceful and hopeful tone in the first stanza, where the mother is sending her child to march for civil rights, to a tragic and devastating tone in the second stanza, where the mother's worst fears come true as the church is bombed and her child is killed.