Belfast Confetti

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Belfast Confetti’by Ciaran Carson describes a speaker watching the live scene after the riot between the shipyard workers, who were the Protestants, and the Catholics. The following poems similarly showcase the themes included in Ciaran Carson’s haunting lyric ‘Belfast Confetti’.

Belfast Confetti by Ciaran Carson test questions - CCEA - BBC Belfast Confetti by Ciaran Carson test questions - CCEA - BBC

I'mtakingmyEnglishLitreatureGCSEthisyear-1-9Edexel(2018)andI'mstrugglingtomemoriseeverysinglepoem,withquotations.IwaswonderingifIcouldgetawaywithstudyingafewpoemsindepth,thatmoreorlesscancomparetoanyotherpoem,suchasHalfcaste,TheClassGameorExposureandafewmore.Andjustknowtheothersbriefly? Summer 1969 by Seamus Heaney– It’s one of the best-known Seamus Heaney poems. This poem was written during the Ulster riots of 1969 and explores the theme of conflict. Read more Seamus Heaney poems. This poem is about the aftermath of the “Troubles” that were an ethnic-nationalist period of conflict in Northern Ireland. The situation lasted for 30 years from the late 1960s to the late 1990s. It is also known as the Northern Ireland conflict. The poet describes the aftermath of the sectarian riot in Belfast. His speaker describes how the confusion outside leads to a chain of internal confusions. He cannot think properly. The events that he observed keep flooding his mind, leaving him only with questions. The poem ‘Belfast Confetti,’ one of the best-known poems of Ciaran Carson, pulls the reader into the aftermath of Belfast’s sectarian riot. He has used punctuationto symbolize missiles that Protestants used during this riot, which was against the Catholic crowd in Belfast. Carson uses enjambment to internally connect the last two lines. After referring to those things, he feels quite tense. The way he speaks reveals the growing tension in his mind. He cannot even remember his name or where he lives. The situation was so worse that none could say where they were heading towards. In the last line, the phrase “A fusillade of question-marks” depicts the questions raised by the innocent eyes of the Catholics that were slaughtered by the merciless nationalist groups.Carson has used past tense to describe the violence held against the Catholic crowd in the place. He has used the same tense to portray the different effects of being in the middle of the conflict.

Belfast Confetti - GCSE English Language and English Literature Belfast Confetti - GCSE English Language and English Literature

In the eighth line, the speaker speaks incoherently. Firstly, he refers to the Saracen tanks and the metal netting used over the tanks that are known as the Kremlin-2 mesh. The police used those things to control the riot. They used “Makrolon face-shields” while the mob only had nuts, bolts, nails, and car keys. To communicate among themselves they used Walkie-talkies. The allegory of using punctuation to symbolises the horrors of the riot continues here. Carson identifies how full ‘stops’ and ‘colons’ act like a barrier between two sentences or clauses in literature and transfers this to barriers, likely scattered debris, to the riot-torn streets.The rhetorical question creates a tone of desperation. The short, heavily punctuated, sentences, once again, give a choppy quality to the narrative. Now, this choppiness seems to signify the distress and his desperation to escape the riot. Carson has adopted a narrative style in this poem ‘Belfast Confetti’ to depict an entire scene to the readers. They can feel the horrifying scene just like it is depicted by the poet. By reading this poem, one can easily understand the pain that the scene and the riot must have caused to the poet.

Subject matter - Belfast Confetti - CCEA - GCSE English - BBC Subject matter - Belfast Confetti - CCEA - GCSE English - BBC

Ciaran Carson, the poet of ‘Belfast Confetti,’ was born in the year 1948. He is not only a poet but also an amazing novelist, who is cherished by almost all those who love literature. Born and brought up in Belfast, Northern Ireland, he writes both poetry and prose, which is often heavily influenced by his Irish roots. BelfastConfettiandWWTL-thefirstisapoemaboutconfusionduringaconflict,thesecondisaboutpossibleeffectsofconflict Half-casteandNoProblem-challengingracismindifferentways(personallyIwouldlookmoreatcomparingHalf-castetoTheClassGame)

He was bestowed with the Alice Hunt Bartlett Prize for “The Irish For No” (1987) and has also won the Irish Times’ Irish Literature Prize for Poetry for ‘Belfast Confetti’. Besides being an author and a novelist, he is also a well-known musician and columnist. He has still not left his pen. Line 2: “N,” “ts,” “b,” “t,” “s,” “n,” “s,” “c,” “k,” “s,” “n,” “t,” “b,” “k,” “n,” “t,” “n,” “x,” “p,” “n” Carson’s speaker describes the war-like situation in the second line. The speaker can imagine a found of broken images floating in his mind and hear the sound of the explosion. In this line, the phrase, “Nuts, bolts, nails, car-keys” hints at the scrap metals used as weapons by the Protestants during the “Troubles” in Ireland.

Context - Belfast Confetti - CCEA - GCSE English Literature

Outside History by Eavan Boland – This poem speaks on the larger history of Ireland, the role of women in history, and the life of stars. Read more Eavan Boland poems.

To understand this language we must reflect on the asterisk and its uses. It is used to mark significance in a piece of text. Carson relates this idea of significance to an ‘explosion’. Carson creatively comments on the caesura of this line here as well – saying that the hyphen gives the spoken narrative a choppiness just like a ‘burst f rapid [machine gun] fire’. Belfast Confetti creates a sense of place through the use of proper nouns close proper noun Refers to a person, place or the name of an organisation or brand. such as “Balaklava” and “Crimea Street”. However, The Road Not Taken utilises visual imagery and descriptive detail such as “a yellow wood”. In the 1970’s the Irish nationalist groups started to use violence in an attempt to gain independence from Britain. The British army occupied the streets of Northern Ireland to protect the Catholics. However, they saw it as an unwanted occupation. Carson has used the first-person narrative style to describe his feelings in the most efficient way. It is a free verse poem. Note the shift from past to present tense that occurs in the second stanza. This has the effect of strengthening the reader’s connection with the narrator and making his thoughts seem more pivotal.