- The poem, ‘Ballad of Birmingham’ is about the bombing of the church in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15th of 1963. It is about one of the four girls who were killed in the chaos of the explosion and their life in the morning leading up to the incident. The poem also shows some of the mothers’ feelings at the time.
- ‘She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair,’
- The words and phrases that make me realise the young girl was sweet, innocent and kind are the tone and words she uses to speak to her mother in the first four stanzas. In these stanzas, she refers to her mother as ‘Mother dear’ and is also extremely polite when asking if she can go downtown to attend the march, this is where she says, ‘may I go downtown instead of out to play, and march the streets of Birmingham In a freedom march today.’ These two quotes indicate she is young and innocent because if she were an older child she would not have to ask for her mothers’ permission to attend the march and also her language used is very respectful. Another section of the poem that shows her innocence and purity is when the mother says to the daughter, ‘But you may go to church and sing in the children’s choir’, this clearly states that the daughter is young by referring to her as a child and also churches are considered one of the safest and most pure and protected places for a child to be.
- The effect of having two different types of narration is to give us a description of the scene unfolding before us and also give us the added perspective of the conversation between the mother and daughter. Using third-person narration usually gives more of a relatable effect because you can paint a picture using different writing techniques like metaphors, alliteration, similes and also verbs and adjectives. Using dialogue in a poem can give the viewer a more extreme emotional effect because it can make the reader feel more connected to the character. This is caused by the emotion and personality that can be felt through dialogue.
- Assonance, alliteration and metaphors can bring a more personal or enticing effect to the poem. This is because these techniques can make a piece of writing more enjoyable to read or more captivating due to the sound and feel they can give. Assonance, for example, ‘No, baby, no, you may not go,’ makes the lines or words used feel repeated, which in turn makes them stick in our memories more than others. This is similar for alliteration because the letters or sounds at the starts of words are repeated, an example of this is, ‘Her eyes grew wet and wild.’ This also makes sentences containing alliteration feel more powerful and sped up because it links the words together and makes the sentence flow quicker and smoother. Metaphors like, ‘For the dogs are fierce and wild,’ are used to make the description more personal and give direct relation and meaning between the two things that are being compared.
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