“The Ballad of Rudolph Reed” is a ballad, a narrative poem consisting of quatrains (four-line stanzas), a rhyme scheme of ABCB or ABAB in each stanza, and lines that contain three to four beats or accented syllables. Brooks adheres to the ballad form throughout most of the poem, but there are some noticeable exceptions.

In the first stanza, Brooks adheres to ballad form with an ABCB rhyme scheme but relies on a pattern of alternating stressed and unstressed syllables, usually three to a line. Note the beats in the first stanza:

Rudolph | Reed was| oaken.

His wife |was oaken | too.

And his two | good girls | and his good | little man

Oakened | as they | grew (Lines 1-4).

That alternating stress gives most lines the musical sound one associates with traditional ballads, many of which were shared as songs performed in communal settings. The third line has four beats, and that interruption in the regular pattern underscores what later becomes clear in the poem, which is that Reed’s connection to his children is an intense one that exceeds reason and restraint.

Another departure from form appears in the fifth stanza, where Rudolph Reed commits to finding a good home.