The Ball Poem

Realizing the inevitable is a part of life we all have to come to terms with. Growing up, moving forward, looking back; all of us are subjected to time, and the life that we are given and the lessons that we learn within that time. We live and we learn. During childhood the author of, “The Ball Poem” John Berryman, experienced a loss. He writes about the pain associated with that loss and the memories that were connected. John Berryman expresses Symbolism, Imagery, and Metaphors throughout his poem by telling his story as a child, and the significance behind what could be the grief of losing his father. Berryman writes in his poem about depression and sadness. He uses the little boy and the ball to compare to a situation that most of us readers have experienced. The poem isn’t given any specific setting; rather it has very little subjects and objects that leave us, the readers, with a wide imagination. Berryman uses Symbolism in his poem by writing, “People will take balls, Balls will be lost always, little boy.” He is comparing the ball to some sort of irretrievable loss that he has experienced. The anguish and agony of losing something so dear to a boy is tough. Being a child, our toys are what we are most important to us. Berryman knows the relationship between children and their toys and uses it in such ways to explicate the sorrow that this young boy is feeling. Berryman expresses so much emotion in this poem that it’s almost difficult not to feel what this young boy is feeling. “What is the boy now, who has lost his ball,” is how the poem begins, therefore, giving off a sense of mourning and gloom. We get this visual image that the ball is gone, and that the boy is indefinitely saddened. Because who wouldn’t be, by losing anything closest to us. Berryman uses imagery by saying, “I saw it go merrily bouncing, down the street, and then merrily over—there it is in the water!” At this point, we see that he set us up for disappointment. We knew that the ball