Belfast Confetti by Sami, Sacha, Adam and Tom

Contents

● Title1

● Contents2

● About Ciaran Carson3

● About ‘Belfast Confetti’4

● Language & Poetic Devices5

● Themes of ‘Belfast Confetti’6

About Ciaran Carson Ciaran Carson was born in Belfast into an Irish-speaking family. He attended St Marys CBGS Belfast before proceeding to Queen's University, Belfast (QUB) to read for a degree in English.After having a graduation, he worked for over twenty years as the Traditional Arts Officer of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. In 1998 he was appointed a Professor of English at QUB where he established, and is the current Director of, the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry. He resides in Belfast.

About Belfast Confetti

● Belfast confetti is a poem about the aftermath of a sectarian riot in Belfast.

● The poem won the Irish Times Irish Literature Prize for Poetry.

● The name of the poem derives from the nickname for the large ship-

building rivets and other scrap metal that were used as missiles by

Protestant shipyard workers during anti-Catholic riots in Belfast.

Language & Poetic Devices● To start with, the title is a contrast. Confetti is commonly used to help celebrate weddings and happiness, however in this

poem it is used to describe the objects and rubble being thrown around by the rioters in the conflict.● It plunges the reader straight into the action with the word 'suddenly'. It gives the feeling that the conflict is really hectic

and that you do not get the chance to get used to things like this... war does not subside for anybody or anyone.● It is ironic how Carson uses the list "Nuts, bolts, nails, car-keys''. Things like these are usually used to help keep things

together, however in this instance it is being used to make explosives to blow things apart.● There are lots of lists throughout, and these give the feeling that the conflict goes on for a long time.● Both of the stanzas are of equal length, however there is a big difference between the two, as the first is used to describe

the past and what has happened in the conflict, whereas the second stanza is in the present tense, telling us what is happening right now. That is also making it seem like the conflict has been going for a long while.

● The frequent use of enjambment throughout puts higher emphasis on singular important words, and this happens throughout.

● The fact that the streets of Belfast are being described as a labyrinth emphasises how scary the conflict comes across to the civilians. It could also be said that you don't often make it out of a labyrinth because of the horrible beast that lies within, and the same can be said for the streets of Belfast.

● The list of streets are all previous battles, which gets the idea across that absolutely everywhere is a battle, and there is no rest-bite to be had during the hardships of war

● There seems to be a bigger sense of panic in the second stanza, which you can see because of the increased amount of punctuation and lists, making it feel more disjointed.

● The whole poem is really just an extended metaphor for the way violent conflict destroys language.

Themes of Belfast Confetti

● The theme in the poem is about conflict.● They are riots that happen in Belfast in Northern

Ireland. ● The theme gives off a gritty feel to make it more intense

and confusion.