"Ballad of Birmingham"
...at neither one are thinking that this could be their last day to for those very rituals. With his choice of words, “She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair/And bathed rose petal sweet,” Randall symbolizes a sweet, young innocent girl who wants to have fun and play. Other symbols are used throughout the poem add to the impact of the shocking tragedy to come. Dudley Randall also used imagery for the reader to get a better sense of who is represented in the poem. After convincing her daughter to go play with the children at church, unexpected sounds of a terrible explosion fill the air. Worrying about the little girl, the mother “raced through the streets of Birmingham/Calling for her child.” The reader has as sense of sorrow for the mother after reading these words. It is never a good thing to hear an explosion, but even more frightening when your children or loved ones are not with you. Even more so, it is a terrible tragedy to lose someone in the family in an unexpected death. Irony is undoubtedly the most important element for the theme of this poem. As any child does, this little girl who wants to be adventurous. Just as any loving mother, she does not want her daughter to go to dangerous places. She lets her know that she “fears those guns will fire./But you may go to the church instead.” Most people know, or at least think that a church is one o...