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 National book award.

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.
 Summary
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.
 Word Meanings

Merrily: cheerful
Bouncing: jumping up and down
Grief: sorrow
Rigid: fixed
Trembling: shaking
Harbour: dock, port
Intrude: invader
Dime: 10 cents (U.S)
Worthless: valueless, useless
Possessions: ownership
External: Here, things with which feelings are not attached
Desperate: hopeless
Epistemology: The Greek word episteme means ‘knowledge’, study of knowledge
 Stanzas with 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!
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 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

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 word ‘ball’

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.

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 thing, still, it will not be able to buy the 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
Rhyme scheme: There is no rhyme scheme followed in the poem.
 Textual Questions
Question 1: 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 says “I will not intrude on him” because he wants the boy to learn the
meaning of loss on his own. He does not offer him money to buy another ball because
according to him, money or another ball is worthless. The boy was trying to understand
his first responsibility as he had lost something, which could not be brought back.

Question 2: “… staring down/All his young days into the harbor 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, it seems like the boy has had the ball for a long time. When it bounced
into the water, all his memories of the days of childhood flashed in front of him. This led
to a realisation that those moments would not come back, just like the ball. He can buy
new balls and can similarly create new moments, but those that are gone would not
return.
Question 3: What does “in the world of possessions” mean?

ANSWER: Here, “in the world of possessions” means the world where everything and
every action is made to possess something, whether it is the possession of land,
property, money, or any other thing. The poet suggests that losing a ball, which is a very
small thing, would make the boy understand what it is like to lose something that one
possessed. This would make the boy realise that this is a world of possessions and
where one can possess more things by buying them, one cannot buy what has been
lost.

Question 4: Do you think the boy has lost anything earlier? Pick out the words that
suggest the answer.

ANSWER: No, it seems that the boy had not lost anything earlier. The words that
suggest so are ‘senses first responsibility in a world of possessions’.
Question 5: 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 suggests that from the loss of the ball, the boy is learning how to
stand up in a world of possessions where he will lose things, will buy some more to
replace the ones lost, but would never be able to buy back the thing that he had lost. He
is sensing his first responsibility as he has lost the ball. The poet says that money is
something external and what he really wants the boy to understand is the meaning of
loss. The boy is learning what it means to lose something. The poet says that knowing
that every man has to stand up after such losses, the boy too will learn how to stand up
and leave the losses behind as he would have understood the true meaning and nature
of loss.