17 pages • 34-minute read
Ballad
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Themes
A Woman’s Role in Love
Even though Sanchez uses no names and only one gender-revealing pronoun in this poem, the clues in the poem and the authorial and historical context suggest the speaker and the person to whom she is speaking are both women. In the third stanza, the speaker talks about “fix[ing]” her body “under his” (Lines 17- 18), suggesting the dominance of the man. The reason the term “dominance” is appropriate here is because she follows up the above line with “all trace of me / was wiped away” (Lines 20-21). These lines appear to imply that the speaker lost her identity to the man she was with, or to the relationship as a whole; therefore, this identity becomes difficult to change. The term “fixed” in Line 17 suggests, on one hand, that she does not want to leave the joy she feels in that moment but, on the other hand, suggests the inflexibility of her role as woman in the heterosexual relationship. The lowercase “i” throughout the poem also adds to the speaker’s vulnerability, i.e., making herself smaller than her male partner.
Ultimately, the speaker remembers the moment of the two of them in bed before she goes “to sleep in love” (Line 19), but she does not remember “when or who” (Line 15) it was. The intensity of the love she felt and the loss of herself in the process outweigh the recollection of the person she loved and the time period it took place. The speaker sees this “naked dream” (Line 23) in the “young heiress” (Line 23) to whom she is speaking, and she knows the cycle of lost identity and faded memories will continue in new generations of women if she does not speak aloud her truth.
The Broad Spectrum of Love
Love has many definitions, including familial, friendly, romantic, and sexual. People also say how much they love a meal or love walking along the beach during the time of the sun’s setting. With all of these definitions, the word sometimes leaves recipients of love wondering how much they are, in fact, loved and in what manner. Various definitions of love are found in Sanchez’s poem.
In “Ballad,” the speaker talks of not being able “to learn of love” (Line 4) because of her advanced age. She speaks to her listener about being too young to understand love. When she elaborates on what she means by love in the second stanza, she compares love to acts of nature, such as “the rain exploding” (Line 5), suggesting that the love she speaks of is intense and both beautiful and destructive in that intensity. The third stanza becomes more personal and more specifically addresses an all-consuming sexual love: “I fixed my body / under his and went / to sleep in love / all trace of me / was wiped away” (Lines 17-21). This type of intense love cannot sustain itself, and something must give.
The presumed listener in the poem, or the recipient of the poetic lines, is receiving a certain type of love as well. The speaker likely has an affection, or a type of mentoring love, for this listener, as the speaker’s intention to impart wisdom is repeated throughout the poem: “you are so young / and i too old to learn of love” (Lines 24-25).
Generational Divide Shows Commonalities
At the start of the poem, the speaker establishes herself as an older mentor, one who believes and confidently shares that she has the wisdom that the person to whom she is addressing does not yet have: “forgive me if i laugh / you are so sure of love” (Lines 1-2). The laugh suggests that the speaker knows better and believes that the younger person is likely wrong in her estimation of love. The speaker’s wisdom is also the reason for why she understands that she and the other person cannot understand love: “you are so young / and i too old to learn of love” (Lines 3-4). The young listener has much of life to experience, and the older speaker has plenty of life experiences. The older speaker might believe that it is too late for her to find love again, or, she might realize that no amount of experience or age is conducive to understanding the mysteries of love.
The above two lines leave the reader wondering if there is an ideal middle age between young and old, perhaps a fleeting period of time, that is only when a person can experience real love. This interpretation seems to be supported in the third stanza when the speaker mentions that she knew of love “once” (Line 14). This love appears to be life-altering, one that compels the speaker to declare again at the end of the poem that she is “too old to learn of love” (Line 25).
In the final stanza, the speaker addresses the other person as a “young heiress of a naked dream” (Line 23), as if she sees herself in this person, this younger version of herself. She knows what this person is likely to go through in her romantic life; she appears to caution her about growing up too quickly and taking the risk she once did when she believed she was in love and lost “all trace” (Line 20) of herself. Love mystifies both the older speaker and the younger listener, regardless of age or experience.
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