5.The Ball Poem

The Ball Poem

by John Berryman

About the Poet

John Berryman was an American poet and scholar. He is best known for the Dream Songs (1969) which was a sequence of 385 poems. He won Pulitzer Prize for the dream songs. He also won the National book award

Summary

In this poem the poet is trying to illustrate that one must learn how to bear loss which is certain reality of life, by describing a boy who has lost his ball.

 A boy has lost his ball while playing when it bounces out of his control and finally falls into the water. Consequently, the boy became sad.

 The poet feels his sorrow that how his memories were attached to that ball that no other ball will be sufficient to lessen his sadness. Here, the lost ball is metaphorically used to convey general loss of a human being that can be the loss of personal possession, the death of some near and dear one.

The poet has conveyed the beautiful lesson that everyone has to bear losses throughout his life, he must learn how to face the sorrow and move on in life.

The Ball Poem Introduction

The poet John Berryman through his poem, ‘The ball poem’ has described the reality of life which everyone has to face one day. He has touched the topic of how to stand up against the miseries and sorrows of life.

 Explanation

What is the boy now, who has lost his ball,
What, what is he to do? I saw it go
Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then
Merrily over — there it is in the water!
1. Merrily: cheerful
2. Bouncing: jumping up and down

The poet is depicting the sad moments of a boy who has lost his ball.  He is trying to find out what this boy will do after losing his ball.

The poet has seen the ball going away from the boy, merrily jumping up and down in the street and finally it fell into the water before he could catch it.

Thus, he lost his ball while playing happily with it. The poet is trying to seek how does the boy feel. Is he prepared the bear the loss or not.

Literary devices:
Anaphora: use of repeated words in two or more lines (What is the boy… what, what and merrily bouncing… merrily over)
Assonance: repeated use of vowel ‘o’ (boy, now, who, lost)
Imagery: when poet says merrily bouncing down the street
repetition: ‘what’ is repeated

No use to say ‘O there are other balls’:
An ultimate shaking grief fixes the boy
As he stands rigid, trembling, staring down
All his young days into the harbour where
His ball went. I would not intrude on him;
A dime, another ball, is worthless. Now
He senses first responsibility

• Grief: sorrow
• Rigid: fixed
• Trembling: shaking
• Harbour: dock, port
• Intrude: invader
• Dime: 10 cents (U.S)
• Worthless: valueless, useless

The poet says that the boy is very sad  and it is useless to consoling him by saying that he will get another ball because all  his  memories of the childhood days were connected with that ball, so no other ball can be a substitute of that.

This is indeed an unbearable loss for him. Thus, he is grief stricken. The poet says that he would not console him as this is the high for the boy to learn

 the responsibility of taking care of his things. 

Literary devices:
Repetition: use of word ‘ball’
Asyndeton: no use of conjunction in a sentence (A dime, another ball, is worthless)

In a world of possessions. People will take
Balls, balls will be lost always, little boy.
And no one buys a ball back. Money is external.

He is learning, well behind his desperate eyes,
The epistemology of loss, how to stand up
Knowing what every man must one day know
And most know many days, how to stand up.

Word meanings

• Possessions: ownership
• External: Here, things with which feelings are not attached
• Desperate: hopeless
• Epistemology: The Greek word episteme means ‘knowledge’

In these lines, the poet says that the boy need to learn that in this  world, where we owe so many belongings, these possessions will be lost for sure or will never last for wholelife.

He symbolises the ball as his belongings (ownership or relationship) says that he has to learn to live without them no matter what.

The poet says no other ball could be its substitute as that could never be associated with his memories or sense of belongingness

 He says that the boy is getting a lesson  that how to bear the loss of sweet belongings and be responsible for others in future .

 This is the harsh reality that everyone has to learn in his or her life.

 Literary devices:
Alliteration: use of sound ‘b’ at the start of two consecutive words (buys a ball back)
Assonance: use of vowel sound ‘e’ (He is learning, well behind his desperate eyes)
Repetition: ‘ball’ word is repeated
Rhyme scheme: There is no rhyme scheme followed in the poem.

The Ball Poem Questions Answers

Q1-Why does the poet say, “I would not intrude on him”? Why doesn’t he offer him money to buy another ball?
Answer- The poet does not want to intrude so that the boy can the reality of life which is full of separation and loss. Thus, he must learn to accept the loss of the most important thing or relationship.

Q2- “… staring down/All his young days into the harbour where/His ball went …” Do you think the boy has had the ball for a long time? Is it linked to the memories of days when he played with it?
Answer- Yes, through these lines  we can say that the boy had the ball for a very long time as it tells how the boy recalls those days when he used to play with the ball. The ball was surely linked to some sweet memories of his playing with the ball.

 Q3- What does “in the world of possessions” mean?
Answer-  In the world of possessions means that the world is full of materialistic things. Materialistic things are those things which bring comfort and luxury in our life.

 Q4- Do you think the boy has lost anything earlier? Pick out the words that suggest the answer?
Answer- The line in the poem “now he senses his first responsibility’ helps us to know that the boy has not lost anything before.

Q5- What does the poet say the boy is learning from the loss of the ball? Try to explain this in your own words?
Answer-  The poet means that the boy will learn the harsh reality of life. He will learn how to accept the loss and move on in life. Everyone experiences this in his/ her life when they lose either something or someone. The fact that lost things never come back make people strong enough to live their life by accepting this truth of life.