The confusion of the blast is mirrored by the narrator’s unfitted sentence in his head ‘stuttering’ almost like machine gun fire. The phrase refers to the bomb’s shrapnel which Carson pictures as punctuation. The ironic use of ‘confetti’ could suggest the uncomfortable marriage of the Protestant and Catholic residents. Belfast confetti refers to the wage metal fragments from Belfast’s shipyards, already in sever decline by 1990. In fact the title itself is multi-layered. The punctuation metaphor is central to the poem. The language changes from past to present tense between the first and second stanza to show the narrator’s inability to escape. Every time he tries to escape, his attempts are thwarted by security forces and confusion. Stanza 2 describes the poet/narrator trying to escape the area but being prevented from doing so – the idea of the mythological ‘labyrinth’ is a key image. We are thrown in to the action with the opening word ‘Suddenly.’ similar to Hughes’ Bayonet Charge. The poem explores the reality of battle – being trapped, fear and confusion and violence. The poem describes the explosion of a homemade bomb in Belfast, and the British Army riot squad moving in. The following website gives you key information about this conflict: These were filled with nuts, bolts and nail, which would become lethal spray when exploded. A feature of the Troubles was the planting of homemade bombs, particularly by the IRA (Irish Republican Army). Carson lived through the Troubles – a period of frequent Protestant-Catholic violence in Belfast from the late 1960s to 1998. The poem Belfast Confetti was written by Ciaran Carson and published in 1990.
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