Embedded Files
Summary
Summary
'Belfast Confetti' is set in 1969, during the violent conflict in Northern Ireland that became known as “the Troubles”. Carson imagines himself in the speaker’s position and presents the scene through his eyes. The poem opens as the riot squad moves in to try and stop a riot; almost immediately, a home-made bomb explodes. The speaker is trying to make sense of the sudden violence, but he can’t find a way to express his experience. He uses the extended metaphor of punctuation to convey his mental confusion. His disorientation is reflected by the way he can no longer find his way around familiar streets. Finally, he is stopped and questioned at a check-point; the poem ends with him echoing the questions he’s being asked, as though he doesn’t know the answers. The poem illustrates the way that violent conflict can shatter all sense of coherence or meaning and make communication impossible.
A Reading of Belfast Confetti
A Reading of Belfast Confetti
Context
Context
Ciaran Carson
Ciaran Carson is a poet and novelist from Belfast.
Born in 1948, he grew up speaking Irish as his first language. He picked up English words playing out on the streets with friends.
After graduating from Queen’s University Belfast in 1971, Carson worked for the Arts Council of Northern Ireland as a specialist in traditional music and culture.
An accomplished flautist, his job often involved doing what he describes as "field work" - playing in bars all over Ireland.
Carson went on to become Professor of English at QUB, where he also established and directed the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry.
He lived through what came to be known as the Troubles.
In 1969 he narrowly missed death when a bullet tore through a taxi he was sitting in on the Falls Road.
Carson has won a number of awards. These include the Irish Times Irish Literature Prize, the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Forward Prize for Best Poetry Collection and the Costa Poetry Award.
The Troubles
The period known as the Troubles refers to a violent thirty-year conflict in Northern Ireland. It was framed by a civil rights march in Londonderry on 5 October 1968 and the Good Friday Agreement on 10 April 1998.
At the heart of the conflict lay the constitutional status of Northern Ireland.
The goal of the unionist and overwhelmingly Protestant majority was to remain part of the United Kingdom.
The goal of the nationalist minority - who were almost exclusively Catholic - was to become part of the Republic of Ireland.
The scale of the killings perpetrated by all sides - loyalist and republican paramilitaries and the security forces - eventually exceeded 3,600. As many as 50,000 people were physically maimed or injured, with countless others psychologically damaged.
Violence on the streets of Northern Ireland was commonplace and spilled over into Great Britain, the Republic of Ireland and as far afield as Gibraltar.
Several attempts to find a political solution failed until the Good Friday Agreement, which restored self-government to Northern Ireland and brought an end to the Troubles.
Ciaran Carson on 'Belfast Confetti'
Guided Annotations
Guided Annotations
Annotations & Notes
Annotations & Notes
Lesson Slides
Lesson Slides
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