Belfast Confetti- by Ciaran Carson

Question 1

Belfast Confetti:
Who is this poem written by?

Answer 1

Ciaran Carson

Question 2

Belfast Confetti:
What is the meaning here?

Answer 2

-Speaker is someone who was caught up in a bomb explosion in Ireland.
-Poem is an extended metaphor of punctuation for how war/conflict destroys communication and creates confusion.

Question 3

Belfast Confetti:
“Nuts, bolts, nails, car-keys. A fount of broken type. And the explosion.”
What is some analysis of this quote?

Answer 3

-Asyndetic listing here increases the pace of the poem and implies a sense of panic and urgency compounded by monosyllabic words that mirror pace of bombs.
-Plosives provide aural imagery to what they bombs were like.

Question 4

Belfast Confetti:
“My name? Where am I coming from? (…) A fusillade of question-marks.”
What is some analysis of this quote?

Answer 4

-Implies that the war has created a lot of confusion for those involved, including the speaker, including psychological impacts.
Symantic field of military (‘fusillade’).

Question 5

Belfast Confetti:
“I know this labyrinth so well - Balaclava, Raglan”
What is some analysis of this quote?

Answer 5

-Labyrinth makes the city sound sinister, mirroring the fear felt by people disrupted by the conflict of the bomb and the Troubles in general.
-These are names of streets in Belfast, and these are all streets named after generals / battles / places from the Crimean War, which could suggest that this riot is similar to a battle in a bigger war. Metaphor for how something can be blown out of proportion.

Question 6

Belfast Confetti:
What is some analysis of this title?

Answer 6

-Nickname for the crews, bolts, nails in the IRA bombs and how they made it more lethal.
-Ironic since confetti connotes something celebratory but it is sinister here.

Question 7

Belfast Confetti:
What is the context here?

Answer 7

Carson lived through the Troubles which started in the late 1960s and ended in 1998 when the Good Friday Agreement was signed. Carson, even in 1969, narrowly missed death when he was shot at in a taxi.
Issue was the divide between the Irish Republicans /Nationalists
Conflicting beliefs resulted in violence. It is estimated three to four thousand people died. The violence came in the form of bomb attacks, and street disturbances, and resulted in security checkpoints and a constant military presence.