This essay argues that the song ＂Desolation Row,＂ found on the album Highway 61 Revisited by Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan, is a cubist collage ballad which utilizes its hybridity to link itself to the folk tradition and depicts that tradition's formation and mythology. Moreover, the song modifies the folk genre to expand its thematic scope as well as to structurally represent unity and fragmentation on both an individual and national level. The essay's primary area of scrutiny is the structure of the song, and ancillary lyrical analysis is conducted when necessary. The argument is executed by first performing a preliminary examination of the form and history of the ballad before recording the entire scansion of ＂Desolation Row＂ to prove that it is a ballad. An analysis of the song's rhyme scheme and stresses is then undertaken to illuminate the poetic details contained within the song's form. Finally, the poetic scope of the song's fragmentary structure is explored via its comparison to cubist art. The poetic implications created within the song’s negative spaces-that is to say, where the song neglects details-as well as Dylan's masterful use of structural fragmentation are explored throughout the essay's cubist reading. Dylan's use of the ballad in ＂Desolation Row,＂ the essay argues, allows the song both to allude to and to modify the American folk tradition and the broad mythos of American folklore