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| John Berryman |
Introduction:
John Berryman, the poet of the poem ‘The Ball Poem’
describes the reality of life. We have to face the reality of losing something
which we love. The poet tells about coping up with losses, sorrows, and miseries
of life.
About the Poet:
John Allyn McAlpin Berryman was an American
poet and scholar. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half
of the 20th century. His best-known work is The Dream Songs. He won National
Book Award, Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and Bollingen Prize.
Summary and Theme:
This poem is about losing something which we love and then
learning to grow up with the loss. It tells us about a boy, who is learning to
experience grief for the first time in his life. The grief is a result of the
loss of a dear possession, his ball. The loss of a ball may be a minor issue. We
may feel that there are many more balls. So, why should the boy worry? But to the
boy, losing the ball is something different. One may get another ball with a
very less amount of money. A ball costs only a cent. But, money is external and
not important here. Another ball or the money cannot buy back the much-loved
ball. Nothing can replace the things we love after we lose them. We have to
know the grief of loss and learn to live with it.
In this poem, the boy’s ball is compared to the poet’s
youth. Those days were happy and innocent. The loss of the ball is the loss of innocence
and happiness that are associated with youth. We cannot get them back. We have to
get over the grief. We need to be strong and get on with our life, irrespective
of the loss and sadness. This is the only way we will survive. We have to
accept and let go.
The poet uses the imagery while telling how the ball implies
the spirit of the boy’s childish innocence. We may visualize how the spirit of
this little boy, like the ball, is sinking into the waters after slipping from
his hands. It drifts further away. The boy has to live and grow with the loss
and the sadness that it brings.
The lesson of accepting the harsh realities of life is
taught to us in this poem. One day we will lose our loved ones and our loved
things. The poem gives us a picture of boys growing up and learning to deal
with the loss of their first possessions. At the same time, it tells us about mankind
learning to deal with the loss of its loved things or people.
Meaning:
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!
merrily: cheerful
bouncing: jumping up and down
The poet is talking about a boy who has lost his
ball. He wants to know about him and his reaction because he has lost his ball.
Further, he asks to himself that what this boy will do after losing his ball.
The poet has seen the ball going away from the boy. He says that the ball was
cheerfully jumping up and down in the street. This means that when the ball
skipped from the boy’s hand it went into the street and later on, it fell into the
nearby river.
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
O there are other balls: The words suggest that
the loss is not important enough to worry about
shaking grief: sadness which greatly affects the
boy
rigid: stiff, fixed
trembling: shaking
(to) intrude on: here, to enter a situation where
one is not welcome
a dime: ten cents (U.S.) one-tenth part of a
dollar
harbour: dock, port
worthless: valueless, useless
The poet says that there is no benefit of
consoling the boy by saying that he will get another ball because he has other
balls too. He says so because the boy is feeling very sad. He is completely
surrounded by sorrow. He is sad because
all the memories of the childhood days went down the harbour with the ball.
Here the poet says that the boy is very sad as the ball which has now gone into
the water reminds him of those sweet memories, of the times when he owned it.
This loss is unbearable for him and he is grief-stricken. The poet says that he
can’t even tell the boy to take some money from him in order to buy another
ball. He says so because the new ball will not bring the sense of belonging to
the boy. Further, the poet says that the time has come for the boy to learn the
responsibility of taking care of his things.
Literary
devices:
Repetition: use of the 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.
possessions: ownership
external: Here, things with which feelings are not
attached
desperate: hopeless
epistemology of loss: understanding the nature of
loss — what it means to lose something
epistemology: The Greek word episteme means
‘knowledge’ (it comes from a word meaning ‘to understand, to know’).
Epistemology is the study of the nature of knowledge itself.
Here the poet says that the boy has to learn that
in this materialistic world, many of his belongings will be lost. He
personifies the ball as his belongings, be it the worldly things or the
relationships he is in possession of. So, he says that he has to learn to live
without them no matter what. He says no one can buy back such things for him.
The poet said so because according to him money can’t buy you everything. If it
does buy you some materialistic things, still, it will not be able to buy the same sense of belongingness. He says that the boy is learning how to stand up
against the sense of lost things. This means that the boy is trying to learn
the real truth of life which states that you have to accept the miseries of
life and stand up again. This is the truth, which everyone has to learn in his
or her life. The harsh truth of standing up against the odd miseries of life
that everyone has to bear.
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
Meaning of
the poem:
The poet is talking about a little boy who has lost his
ball. He was playing with his ball. The ball skipped from his hand and went
into the nearby water body. The poet says that this sight of the boy losing his
favorite ball made him think about the boy and his reaction to this situation.
He further says that the boy was helplessly looking into the water where his
ball had gone. He was sad and was trembling with fear. He got so immersed in
his sorrow that he kept standing near the harbour for a very long time and kept
on looking for his ball.
The poet says that he could console him that he may get new
balls or he could also give him some money to buy another ball. But he stops
himself from doing so because he thinks that the money may bring a new ball but
will not bring the memories and feelings attached to the lost ball. He further
says that the time has come for the boy to learn his responsibilities. Here the
poet wants to say that now the boy will learn the toughest lesson of life. The
lesson of accepting the harsh realities of life that one day we will lose our
loved ones and our loved things.
Rhyming Scheme:
There is no rhyming scheme.
Textual Questions and
Answers:
Q1. Why does the poet say, “I would not intrude on him”? Why
doesn’t he offer him money to buy another ball?
The poet does not want to intrude because he wants the boy
to get a chance to learn the real truth of life. The boy has to learn to accept
the loss. The loss here is symbolic. The ball represents an 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?
Yes. We can say that the boy had the ball for a very long
time. The line tells us how the boy recalls those days when he used to play
with the ball. The ball is associated to many sweet memories.
Q3. What does “in the
world of possessions” mean?
Possession means something that is owned or possessed. In
the world of possessions means the world which is full of materialistic things.
Materialistic things 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?
No. I do not think that the boy has lost anything earlier.
The line in the poem “now he senses his first responsibility’ clearly tells us
the fact.
Q5. What does the
poet say the boy is learning from the loss of the ball? Try to explain this in
your own words?
The poet tells us that the boy will learn the real, harsh
truth of life. He will learn how to move on in life despite of incurring heavy
losses. People experience this in life when they lose either something or
someone. Lost things never come back is a reality that makes people strong enough
to go on in life.
6. Have you ever lost something you liked very much? Write a
paragraph describing how you felt then, and saying whether — and how — you got
over your loss.
Yes. Once I lost something I liked very much. My pet dog,
Lucky, passed away after being a member of our family for about eleven years.
All our family members had an affectionate attachment with the dog. The dog was
a part and parcel of our lives. We were very sad. We could not forget the dog’s
memories. We were unable to bring another dog in its place. We felt sure that
no other dog would bring us the same joy as Lucky did in our lives. No dog,
however nice and loyal could replace its place in our hearts. Slowly, we came
out of the sorrow. Now, whenever I think of the dog, a smile appears on my face
in remembrance of the sweet days and memories I had with the dog.
