Belfast Confetti

Belfast Confetti

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Ciaran Carson was born in Belfast in 1948. After graduating from the Queen's University in Belfast he worked for the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. He became a professor at Queen's University in 1998, as well as being Director of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry.

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Poem Dictionary:

Balaklava, Raglan, Inkerman, Odessa Street, Crimea Street - areas and roads in Belfast

Saracen - an army vehicle

Makrolon - a type of plastic

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Suddenly as the riot squad moved in it was raining exclamation

    marks,

Nuts, bolts, nails, car-keys. A fount of broken type. And

    the explosion

Itself - an asterisk on the map. This hyphenated line, a burst

    of rapid fire...

I was trying to complete a sentence in my head, but it kept

    stuttering,

All the alleyways and side streets blocked with stops and

    colons.

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I know this labyrinth so well - Balaklava, Raglan, Inkerman,

    Odessa Street -

Why can't I escape? Every move is punctuated. Crimea Street.

    Dead end again.

A Saracen, Kremlin-2 mesh. Makrolon face-shields. Walkie-

    talkies. What is

My name? Where am I coming from? Where am I going?

    A fusillade of question-marks.

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This poem's set in Northern Ireland during "The Troubles" - a period when there were lots of terrorist incidents between Catholic and nationalists and Potestant unionists.

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You've Got to Know What the Poem's About

1) The narrator is caught up in a …