Sunday 12 June 2011

Belfast Confetti - Ciaran Carson

This poem is about an individual's experience of conflict within Belfast - between the people in the ship yard and the police. Carson's speaker is caught in the middle of this.


Carson uses an extended metaphor of punctuation throughout the poem, replacing the physical elements of violence with a variety of punctuation marks. Punctuation marks have a variety of connotations. For example...

  • Exclamations - surprise, shouting, panic.
  • Asterisk - something that is ungrammatical, breaks in narrative, an omission.
  • Hypen - linking words, adding in extra information (changing direction perhaps?)
  • Full stops/colons - separating information, pauses. 
  • Question marks - uncertainty, confusion, demanding answers.
Interestingly, the poem ends on the phrase 'a fusillade of question-marks', meaning that the final image in the reader's head is that of uncertainty and confusion. Perhaps this suggests that the fate of Belfast is open and as yet undecided.

No matter what the language (with a few exceptions), punctuation is the constant factor. Think about learning French with the lovely Miss Elphick - although the words are different, the punctuation follows the same rules, doesn't it? Therefore, punctuation can be seen as the one thing which will remain when a language is lost or changes. Carson himself admits that this poem has the theme of language loss at the core of it. The conflict stems from the issue of national identity, which is closely linked to language. After all, language is one of the few things that makes us English. This theme is enforced by the 'fount of broken type' - imagine a fountain that spews out letters instead of water droplets. This breaking down of words into their composite parts reflects the breaking down of language and scattering it in all directions, arguably never to be put back together.

The structure of the poem is that of two stanzas. However, look at how the poem is laid out on the page. Although the lines are of equal length, the final part of each line runs onto the line below. Think about the way your eye travels - it zips back and forth across the page. This could reflect the speaker's own experience of running through the city, looking left to right constantly, searching for a way out.

The confusion portrayed by the punctuation in the first stanza is continued by the image of the 'labyrinth' in stanza two.  It seems as if the city has been purposefully shaped to mislead or test the people within it. The most famous labyrinth is of course that of 'Theseus and the Minotaur' - is Carson purposefully leading us to this image to imagine the sacrifice of young men and women, led to their doom? Is he saying that like the myth, Ireland needs a hero to end the suffering?

The imagery created through the road names is also significant: "Balaclava, Raglan, Inkerman, Odessa Street... Crimea Street". By naming the streets after famous military conflict, it is suggested that the notion of conflict is embedded into the city and into Belfast culture itself. Carson is clearly treating this conflict as historically significant as the named events. Furthermore, "Dead end again" implies repetition through 'again' - just as the speaker is stuck in Belfast, is Ireland stuck in a cycle of conflict?

Questions to consider:
  • What is the effect of the (non-existent) rhyme scheme?
  • Why are there a series of questions in the second stanza?

4 comments:

  1. Thank you, this helped me alot with my english essay!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you so much I would literally have not been able to do this poetry essay without this!

    ReplyDelete
  3. this is a god-send, my revision notes would be shocking without your blog!

    ReplyDelete
  4. This has been really helpful, thank you but are there any more language techniques such as metaphors?

    ReplyDelete