The Full Text of “Belfast Confetti”
The Full Text of “Belfast Confetti”
-
“Belfast Confetti” Introduction
-
"Belfast Confetti" was written by the Irish poet Ciaran Carson and published in the collection The Irish for No in 1987. In the poem, an unnamed speaker appears to be caught up in a bomb blast and tries to escape. The poem then explores the relationship between violence and language itself, as the disoriented speaker searches for an escape route. According to Carson, the poem is set in August 1969 during the Troubles, a violent conflict that took place in Northern Ireland during the late 20th century.
-
-
“Belfast Confetti” Summary
-
Just as the riot police arrived, a bomb went off, causing shrapnel made up of small metal objects—nuts, bolts, nails, and car keys—to fall through the air, like a cascade of exclamation marks. It was like a fountain of broken punctuation marks bursting forth. The explosion radiated outward like the shape of an asterisk on a map. The quick burst of gunfire traveled horizontally, like a row of hyphens. I was trying to form a sentence in my mind, but the words just kept stopping and starting. All the alleyways and side-streets were blocked off, the same way periods and colons block off phrases.
I know this maze of streets very well—there's Balaclava, Raglan, Inkerman, Odessa Street—so why is it impossible to find a way out? Every move I make is blocked, just like punctuation marks block language. Crimea Street is another dead end. Various kinds of military equipment, like an armored tank, clear face shields, and walkie-talkies, are everywhere. Who am I? Where did I come from and where am I headed? Question marks bombard me.
-
-
“Belfast Confetti” Themes
-
Violence and Conflict
“Belfast Confetti” is set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles of the 1960s. Put simply, this was a period of violent conflict between those who wanted Northern Ireland to unify with the rest of Ireland and those who wanted it to remain part of the United Kingdom. The poem describes the confusion, shock, and horror immediately following the explosion of a bomb in the city of Belfast. ("Belfast confetti" was slang for homemade bombs.) Through the speaker's experience, the poem illustrates the devastating and dehumanizing effect that violent conflict has on people and places.
As if to show the way that violence can strike suddenly and indiscriminately, the poem starts with an explosion. The speaker gets caught up in a bomb blast and desperately seeks a way out. The presence of a “riot squad” suggests that this is a high-stakes conflict in which the state is involved (in this case, the British Army). The sheer horror and confusion of such an event are conveyed immediately by the “rain” of “exclamation marks,” suggesting panic, alarm, and a desperate need to escape. Violence, then, has turned the speaker’s hometown into a frightening war zone.
But what's most terrifying about the scene isn't that it's dangerous or surprising—it's the way that the bomb turns things that should be familiar into instruments of fear and destruction. For instance, the bomb that explodes is homemade, packed full of everyday objects that are now intended to maim and kill. These objects appear in line 2 in a cacophonous list: “Nuts, bolts, nails, car-keys.” These are objects that are meant to have ordinary purposes, but their presence in the bomb shows the way that everyday life has been corrupted and transformed by the conflict.
Similarly, the explosion changes even the city streets into an unrecognizable landscape. Belfast is likely the speaker’s home—these are streets that the speaker knows “so well.” But the violence turns Belfast into a “labyrinth,” a reference to the maze in the Greek myth of the Minotaur. This allusion to the labyrinth reveals how this violence has transformed the speaker's home into something unknown and monstrous.
What's more, these streets that offer no escape are named after a conflict that took place just over a century earlier. This was the Crimean War, fought between an alliance of Britain, France, the Ottoman Empire, and Sardinia, against the Russian Empire. It’s a conflict long-forgotten in the context of this poem, but Belfast streets are still named after figures from this war. The list of streets in line 6—"Balaclava, Raglan, Inkerman, Odessa Street"—suggests that there is something permanent about the way that violence transforms the world; this city still carries the marks of this long-ago war, so perhaps it will always bear the burden of the explosion as well.
In the poem's final lines, it becomes clear that this sense of deep, disorienting transformation doesn't just apply to the city; it has also spread to the speaker. The speaker doesn’t know where they are “coming from” or “going” anymore—violent conflict has totally disrupted the speaker's sense of place and purpose. In lines 8 and 9, the speaker even asks: "What is / My name?" This question shows that the violence has caused a loss of identity within the speaker on a personal level, in much the same way that it has transformed the city as a whole. By ending with this "fusillade of question marks" (line 9), the poem confirms that violence isn't just frightening—it can completely destroy any sense of normalcy and certainty.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-9
-
Language, Violence, and Identity
"Belfast Confetti" takes place in the immediate aftermath of a bomb explosion. Through an extended metaphor comparing the speaker's experience to punctuation marks, the poem explores the relationship between violence, language, and identity. The poem relies on familiar features of language (such as question marks and periods) to describe the speaker's experience, but at the same time, it also questions whether language can truly capture the horror of such violence. Furthermore, by showing how language breaks down in the face of violence, the poem suggests that violence has a disruptive effect on people's ability to understand both their own identities and the world more generally.
Starting from the title, the poem questions language’s ability to capture the horrors of violent conflict: "Belfast confetti" is slang for homemade bombs. Confetti usually refers to small bits of paper thrown in celebration—but here, the word describes a deadly weapon. Already, then, language is unstable, as something that sounds lighthearted proves to be terrifyingly serious.
The speaker goes on to compare the violent destruction of the bomb with punctuation marks—which are fundamental tools of language. “Exclamation marks” are raining through the air—suggesting immediate danger—and gunfire is described as a “hyphenated line.” All routes of escape are “blocked with stops and colons.” Language and violence are thus presented as intimately linked, but notably, punctuation is meaningless without a clear context. Because the speaker presents these punctuation marks as chaotic and decontextualized, they seem to act as metaphors describing the way that language can’t fully capture the horrors of violent conflict.
The speaker then explicitly acknowledges the way that violence can strain language to a breaking point. The speaker is trying to make sense of what's happening, but can't “complete a sentence in [their] head.” This shows not just how difficult it is to think clearly in such situations, but also how integral language feels to making the world make sense. This line reinforces the idea that the explosion confuses language, but it also hints at a broader relationship between language and violence. That is, perhaps the violence is in part caused by the failure of language: the inability of both sides to talk and find common ground—and in turn avoid violent conflict.
In the second stanza, the speaker becomes further disorientated. The speaker no longer faces a barrage of exclamation marks, but rather of question marks. Violence seems to disrupt all the certainties of language: the speaker can no longer name themselves, nor where they came from or where they intend to go. At least temporarily, violence disrupts the speaker’s linguistic hold on the world—and by extension, the speaker's understanding of their own identity: the speaker asks, "What is / My name?" In its last two lines, the poem seems to say that without language, it's impossible for people to understand themselves, so when violence disrupts language, it disrupts identity too.
Ending on a "fusillade of question marks," the poem shows that try as it might, language really can't capture the nature of the horrific violence the speaker experiences. However, the poem also hints at the power of language to draw attention to violence, even if it can never quite accurately describe it. People are still talking about this poem, and in turn are learning about the conflict it describes: the Troubles. And indeed, the peace process that eventually brought an end to the Northern Ireland conflict was one based on language: ongoing dialogue between the different parties. “Belfast Confetti,” then, is a poem that shows violence’s capacity to undermine language and identity and language’s own capacity to address violence.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-9
-
-
Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Belfast Confetti”
-
Lines 1-2
Suddenly as the ...
... of broken type."Belfast Confetti" opens in media res—in the midst of the action. The verb "suddenly" signals that the poem depicts a frantic and changing situation, and by the first line's caesura, the reader knows that this involves some kind of civil unrest, since a "riot squad" is involved. The alliteration and consonance of /s/ and /k/ sounds throughout the first line and a half gives the opening a chaotic energy:
Suddenly as the riot squad moved in, it was raining exclamation marks,
Nuts, bolts, nails, car-keys.The sense of immediate chaos in the opening serves one of the poem's main aims: recreating the confusion and fear in the immediate aftermath of a bomb.
But, as is also clear from the beginning, this is not a straightforward literal description of an event. The real-life explosion—the poem is set in the 1960s, during the Troubles in Northern Ireland—is also interpreted and represented through references to language, primarily an extended metaphor comparing the aftermath to punctuation. The fact that it is "raining exclamation marks" as well as the more usual shrapnel found in an improvised bomb sets up the poem's dual focus on violence and language.
The exclamation marks mentioned here work in two ways. First, they carry their usual literal meaning: an alert to danger and a mark of something dramatic happening. But the shape of the mark itself—!—also cleverly represents the bomb itself. This type of bomb has been made fairly crudely and is packed full of any objects that could maim or kill. As the bomb explodes, these objects radiate outwards in fragments—and the exclamation mark, with its separate long line and dot, represents the varied shape of these fragments.
After this more symbolic representation of the bomb, line 2 tells the reader the kind of objects that are actually flying through the air. This moment uses cacophony, deliberately clustering heavy metrical stresses (underlined below) with harsh consonant sounds (in bold):
Nuts, bolts, nails, car-keys.
The lack of conjunctions like "and" (a poetic device called asyndeton) in this list convey the way that these gathered objects were packed tightly into the bomb's casing and adds to the sense that they're densely filling the air.
After line 2's first caesura, the poem uses three more images that develop the link between violence and language. The "fount of broken type" plays with the word "font" (which refers to different typefaces). Throughout, the poem develops the idea that language, though useful, is somewhat unable to capture the true nature of violent experiences like these. So the "broken[ness]" of the "type" in line 2 sets up this anxiety about the inadequacy of language and hints to the reader that even though the poem is trying to describe the speaker's experience, it might fail to do so.
-
Lines 2-5
And the explosion ...
... stops and colons. -
Line 6
I know this ... Inkerman, Odessa Street—
-
Lines 7-8
Why can’t I ...
... Makrolon face-shields. Walkie-talkies. -
Lines 8-9
What is ...
... of question marks.
-
-
“Belfast Confetti” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
-
Alliteration
Alliteration is used sparingly in "Belfast Confetti." It first appears in line 1, and then again in line 2:
Suddenly as the riot squad moved in, it was raining exclamation marks,
Nuts, bolts, nails, car-keys.The two /s/ sounds quicken the pace of the poem's opening, emphasizing the franticness of the situation (just after a bomb has exploded). These combine with the /s/ sound in "as" too (this is also known as sibilance). The paired /n/ and /k/ sounds in the next line convey similarity. That is, the alliteration helps illustrate the basis on which the contents of the home-made bomb are selected: they're all chosen for their ability to maim and kill. The bomb contains small but heavy metal objects, which will fragment and pose a lethal threat when traveling through the air with the power of the explosion.
Another significant instance of alliteration is in line 5's "side-streets" and "stops." It's worth noting that this is one of two sets of pairs in this line, the other being "all the alleyways." While this latter example is not technically alliteration (more like almost-assonance and consonance combined), the pairing of sounds suggests a kind of familiarity. These pairs help evoke the speaker's knowledge of the Belfast streets—knowledge which doesn't seem to help the speaker in the aftermath of the explosion.
The three rhetorical questions in the poem's conclusion are also alliterative. Though the /w/ sounds are quite far apart, the repeated question format makes them chime together. The repeated sound emphasizes the speaker's anxiety and desperation, and intensifies the way that these questions seem difficult to answer in light of the violence that surrounds them.
Where alliteration appears in the poem:- Line 1: “S,” “s,” “i,” “i”
- Line 2: “N,” “n,” “c,” “k”
- Line 3: “a,” “a”
- Line 4: “t,” “t”
- Line 5: “s,” “s,” “s”
- Line 7: “e,” “E”
- Line 8: “m,” “M,” “W,” “W”
- Line 9: “W,” “W”
-
Allusion
-
Assonance
-
Cacophony
-
Caesura
-
Consonance
-
Enjambment
-
Extended Metaphor
-
Rhetorical Question
-
Asyndeton
-
-
"Belfast Confetti" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Riot Squad
- Fount
- Type
- Asterisk
- Hyphenated Line
- Stops
- Colons
- Labyrinth
- Balaclava, Raglan, Inkerman, Odessa, Crimea
- Sararcen, Kremlin-2 mesh, Makrolon face-shields, Walkie-talkies
- Fusillade
-
(Location in poem: Line 1: “riot squad”)
These are state police tasked with trying to bring a big crowd under control.
-
Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Belfast Confetti”
-
Form
"Belfast Confetti" is made up of nine lines broken into two stanzas—the first with five lines, the second with four. While it does not have a strict form, Carson himself called it a kind of "skewed sonnet." That is, the poem's division into two distinct stanzas, with the first a little longer than the second, subtly recalls the sonnet form (which is usually an octave, or eight-line stanza, followed by a sestet, or a six-line stanza). The brokenness of the sonnet form mirrors the types of breakdown displayed in the poem: the breakdown of language, of society, and of the speaker's sense of self.
The poem is disorientating for the reader. It's not clear exactly what's happening, and the poem's consistent use of metaphor—which relates violence and the aftermath of violence to punctuation and language—makes the poem structurally unsound. That is, it's hard to say if this is reporting a real event or if it's a metaphorical take on violent conflict. Either way, the poem seems to begin with an explosion, with the rest of the poem following in the immediate aftermath. The speaker tries to escape through streets that are normally familiar—they are the streets of the speaker's hometown—but doing so now seems impossible. This loss of stability undermines the speaker's sense of self too, resulting in the closing rhetorical questions (and the mention of even more "question marks" in line 9).
-
Meter
"Belfast Confetti" is written in free verse. That means it does not have a regular meter, and the lack of clear meter helps convey the poem's overall atmosphere of confusion and disorientation. However, the poem does make use of clusters of stressed syllables. These create a violent sound, which is clearest in line 2:
Nuts, bolts, nails, car-keys.
With the possible exception of "keys," all five syllables here are stressed. This, combined with the harshness of the consonant sounds, creates cacophony. This effect makes perfect sense, because this is the moment in which the speaker describes the contents of the bomb that has just exploded; the cacophony helps the reader hear something similar to what the speaker is hearing.
-
Rhyme Scheme
"Belfast Confetti" almost never uses rhyme, so it doesn't have anything resembling a typical rhyme scheme. The poem is more focused on harsh sounds that help convey an atmosphere of violence and threat, so the steady and clear ringing-out of rhymes would probably make the poem too pleasant on the ear.
That said, the poem does use a combination of internal rhyme and slant rhyme to emphasize one key moment in line 7: "Dead end again." The repeated /e/ sound across those three words gives the phrase a sense of finality that reflects the speaker's frustrated attempt to escape, and the effect feels all the more forceful in contrast to the lack of rhyme elsewhere in the poem.
-
-
“Belfast Confetti” Speaker
-
The speaker is a Belfast resident, but that's about all readers know about this person. Otherwise, the speaker is unspecified in "Belfast Confetti"—given no name, age, or gender. The poem is told from a first-person perspective, and it seems to find the speaker caught up in a nearby bomb explosion.
But the reader isn't the only one who doesn't know the speaker's identity—it seems like the speaker is confused on that point as well. Such is the fear and terror of the situation, the speaker struggles to even form sentences in their head. And though the speaker is a Belfast resident and knows its streets "so well," the speaker nonetheless finds it impossible to escape. The violence actively undermines the speaker's sense of self and place.
This anxiety of identity is expressed especially clearly in the poem's closing rhetorical questions in lines 8 and 9: "What is / My name? Where am I coming from? Where am I going?" This doesn't necessarily mean that the speaker can't remember their actual name, but more that the speaker's way of making sense of the world—through language—has been utterly undermined by the atmosphere of violence and chaos. Similarly, these closing questions indicate that the speaker's home is also in question; technically, the speaker is from Belfast, but the violence has made the city feel like an increasingly unfamiliar and alien place, leaving the speaker feeling unmoored.
-
-
“Belfast Confetti” Setting
-
The poem is set during the Troubles, a violent conflict in Northern Ireland that took place during the late 20th century (this is explained further in the Context section of this guide). According to Carson himself, the poem takes place in Belfast in August of 1969, though this level of specificity is not necessary to get a sense of the poem's violent atmosphere. Belfast, though, is certainly the poem's location. The streets listed in line 6 are actual Belfast streets (which allude to the Crimean War).
The poem seeks to capture something of the disorientation, fear, and chaos of violent conflict. This was not an out-and-out war between two armies taking place in a far-off land—rather, this conflict struck at the heart of everyday life, with regular streets suddenly becoming battle zones. That's why the speaker's sense of home and belonging is completely disrupted: Belfast becomes an almost alien place through the violence that takes place there.
-
-
Literary and Historical Context of “Belfast Confetti”
-
Literary Context
Ciaran Carson was a poet born to an Irish-speaking family in Northern Ireland. He was born in Belfast in 1948, and his home city features prominently throughout his poetry. He studied English at Queen's University in Belfast, where his tutors included the foremost Irish poet of the late 20th century, Seamus Heaney. Another prominent poet, Paul Muldoon, was among his classmates. Carson had a strong interest in Irish culture, particularly its music, and later worked for the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, playing flute and tin whistle all over the island.
This particular poem is not from the collection of the same name (which was published in 1989), but appeared in the earlier The Irish For No (1987). It is part of a sequence of poems with similar structures and subject matter. Of course, Carson is not the only poet to write about the Troubles (as the late 20th century conflict in Northern Ireland is known). Paul Muldoon, Derek Mahon, and Sinead Morrissey, among many others, have all written powerful poems on the subject. Furthermore, "Belfast Confetti" is a poem about itself as a work of literature as much as it is about the violence of Troubles-era Belfast. The speaker's anxious references to punctuation marks and sentences make the poem into an inquiry into language's role in conflict.
Carson also wrote prose and worked as a translator, work which included a translation of Dante's Inferno. He won numerous prizes throughout his literary career, including the Forward Prize and the prestigious T.S. Eliot Prize. He died in October 2019 from cancer.
Historical Context
"Belfast Confetti" is set in Troubles-era Belfast, Northern Ireland. The Troubles was a conflict in Northern Ireland that ran from 1968 to 1998, but it had roots stretching back hundreds of years. The Troubles was a battle over the identity and status of Northern Ireland. Put simply, it was a fight between those who wanted Northern Ireland to unify with the rest of Ireland—the Republic—and those who strongly felt that Northern Ireland was a part of the United Kingdom (which remains its status to this day). The latter group are known as Unionists and are mostly Protestant, whereas the former group are known as Nationalists or Republicans and are generally Catholic, but it is not generally considered a primarily religious conflict.
The Troubles has been described as a "low-level war," not because it wasn't deadly and frightening, but because of the nature of the conflict. As with the bomb in this poem, explosives were often homemade, and fighting would break out on the same streets where people would usually go about their daily business. To this day, Belfast is divided by so-called "peace walls," attempts to keep the two communities apart. A hard-won and tense truce between the two sides culminated in the Good Friday Agreement, signed in 1998. This attempted to put into place a political power-sharing agreement, with the UK government relinquishing some of its powers to Northern Ireland. The Northern Irish situation remains fraught with difficulties, which are currently exacerbated by the problem of Brexit—the Republic of Ireland is and will remain a member of the European Union, regardless of the status of the United Kingdom (including Northern Ireland).
-
-
More “Belfast Confetti” Resources
-
External Resources
-
The Poem Aloud — Hear the poet recite "Belfast Confetti" out loud.
-
Carson on the Flute — Carson was also a musician, playing traditional Irish music on the flute and tin whistle.
-
More Poems and Info About Carson — A valuable resource on Carson from Poetry Foundation.
-
Troubles Poems — More poems relating to the Troubles conflict.
-
The Troubles and Poetry — An article that explores poets' responses to the Troubles conflict.
-
-
