What are we learning?
AO1
Clearly describe the conflict in
the poems.
AO2
Clearly explain the effects of
structure and form.
Class
Write two paragraphs that do
this for one poem.
Homework (on blog)
Post two paragraphs that do
this for another poem.
A bomb goes off
in Britain. Why?
How many ways can a
bomb affect people?
How might a poem
be like an explosion?
Can you think of any
alternative reasons?
You survive an explosion –
what are your first
feelings?
How might a poet use
structure to reflect
this?
A bomb is an effective
way to get what you
want. Agreed?
How might a poet use
punctuation to reflect
this?
‘Belfast
Confetti’
Ciaran Carson
What is the poem about?
Belfast Confetti is set during the
Northern Irish Troubles.
Belfast is a city with a violent
religious divide. Catholic and
Protestant terror groups made
Belfast a dangerous place to
live in the late twentieth
century.
The poem explores how conflict
affects ordinary people.
Belfast Confetti is the name for
homemade shrapnel that
terrorists would use in their
bombs.
What happens in the poem?
There is an ‘explosion’ just before
the poem starts and the ‘Belfast
Confetti’ falls on the speaker.
The speaker is stopped by the ‘riot
squad’ and, though they know
Belfast ‘so well’, they cannot
‘escape’ – they are in a ‘dead end’
The poem ends with ‘a fusillade’
of questions from the security
forces – clearly they are
suspicious.
What does the poem mean?
The poem suggests that:
The conflict has turned Belfast into a
terrifying ‘labyrinth’ full of ‘dead-ends’.
Conflict interrupts your ability to think
and communicate – you may even
forget where you are ‘coming from’
and where you are ‘going’.
The poem is ambiguous – it
does not openly condemn the
terrorists who caused ‘the
explosion’.
On the other hand, the riot
squad seem threatening. The
poet may be critical of the way
the police treated people in
Northern Ireland.
‘Belfast
Confetti’
Ciaran Carson
How could we
describe the voice?
-confused
‘kept stuttering’
-trapped
‘why can’t I escape’
-personal (1st person)
The speaker could be:
-an innocent resident
-a victim of ‘the explosion’
-a police suspect
-on their own or in a group
Who do you think they are?
-perhaps even a terrorist
themselves
Carson uses an extended
metaphor throughout – he
compares Belfast to a
sentence – broken and
blocked up with
punctuation marks.
We see this most clearly
when the speaker tells us
that his ‘every move is
punctuated’.
This suggests that the city is
fragmented and confusing.
Like a sentence with too
many ‘stops’, ‘exclamation
marks’ and ‘question
marks’, movement is
difficult.
‘labyrinth’
- A dark and
terrifying
maze
“And /
the explosion/
itself”
What is /
My Name?”
Carson structures his
poem using enjambment
This reinforces the feeling
that the speaker’s
thoughts are breaking up.
The frequent line breaks
enact the ‘stuttering’ of
the speaker’s voice.
Language filled with
street names from the
Crimean War.
Lists de-humanise the
riot squad.
‘fusillade of
questions’
‘Balaklava, Raglan,
Inkerman, Odessa’
‘Kremlin-2 Mesh.
Makrolon face-shields’
A fusillade is an army
firing at once
Remind reader of violent
British colonial history.
Suggests barriers between
face to face conflict.
Metaphor implies words
can be as violent as guns.