*Ballad Of Birmingham By dudley* Randall Poem Summary Title Randall’s title — “Ballad of Birmingham” — immediately creates specific expectations in the mind of the reader about what kind of poem this will be. By calling the poem a ballad, Randall places it within an ancient, and initially oral, folk tradition. Typically stories about events or people that were already known to a general audience, ballads often narrate the lives of social outcasts — outlaws such as Robin Hood — or those alienated from the main centers of power in society — like the poor folk for whom Robin Hood stole. Ballads are always stories, often with tragic endings, and they frequently rely on dialogue to tell their tales. They were originally sung, so we can expect that the poem will be strong, musically. Finally, by noting that it is a ballad about Birmingham, Randall signals to his readers what story he will probably be telling: some aspect of the civil rights struggle in Alabama and the events that took place there. Lines 1-4 The very first stanza places the reader directly in the mind and voice of one of the characters of this story. Obviously, a child speaks here, because the speaker asks permission to go “downtown” to join those marching with the demonstrators for “freedom” rather than merely going “out to play.” Randall introduces a kind of gentle irony at this point by turning our expectations as to what a child would usually ask permission to do — go outside and play — upside down; we get the feeling that this child’s childhood is very different from what we imagine or tell ourselves childhood is or should be about. The child asks the question with affection — she calls her mother “dear” — so that we understand the relationship between them to be warm and loving. Lines 5-8 In the next four lines, Randall introduces the second speaker in the poem: the mother. She tells her child — her “baby” as she says — that she can’t go with the marchers because it is too dangerous. Here,...