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Belfast Confetti
Belfast Confetti, Ciaran Carson’s third book of poetry, weaves together in a carefully sequenced volume prose pieces, long poems, lyrics, and haiku. His subjects include the permeable boundaries of Belfast neighborhoods, of memory, of public and private fear, and, indeed, of the forms of language and art. Carson finds unexpected uses—constructive and destructive—of the building rubble of Belfast history. Rich in lore of place, these innovative and vividly fresh poems draw deeply on traditions—oral, local, and literary.
108 pages, Paperback
First published November 10, 1989
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About the author
Ciaran Carson
64 books45 followersCiaran Gerard Carson was born in 1948 in Belfast and educated at The Queen’s University, Belfast. He knows intimately not only the urban Belfast in which he was raised as a native Irish speaker, but also the traditions of rural Ireland. A traditional musician and a scholar of the Irish oral traditional, Carson was long the Traditional Arts Officer of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and is a flutist, tinwhistler, and singer. He is Chair of Poetry at the Seamus Heaney Centre for poetry at Queen’s University, Belfast. He is married to fiddle player Deirdre Shannon, and has three children.
He is author of over a dozen volumes of poetry, as well as translations of the Táin and of Dante’s Inferno, and novels, non-fiction, and a guide to traditional Irish music. Carson won an Eric Gregory Award in 1978.
He is author of over a dozen volumes of poetry, as well as translations of the Táin and of Dante’s Inferno, and novels, non-fiction, and a guide to traditional Irish music. Carson won an Eric Gregory Award in 1978.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
July 27, 2008
It makes me sad that Ciaran Carson has such a bug up his ass about Seamus Heaney, since they are two phenomenal Irish poets who both write amazing poems. Why can't we all just get along, boys? Oh, that's right, because only one of them won the Nobel. And though I appreciate Carson's talent and economy, his poems are broody, masculine (compensating again?), and a little too lonely for my taste. They make me feel like he has no friends, and one might argue that a state of isolation is necessary for some poets, but Heaney is warm and elegant like Irish coffee, and Muldoon is obviously the life of the drunken wordplay party like an Irish carbomb. Reading Carson is like doing shots of Jameson's alone on a rainy day when your dog died and your boyfriend dumped you. Nevertheless, his title poem is stellar.
October 30, 2018
I read this because McKinty mentioned the term "Belfast Confetti" in one of his books as being the bits of blown up car bombs and other bits and pieces resulting from the "troubles." It is an interesting combination of poetry and bits of documents about the history of Belfast. Not my usual thing, but nonetheless it held my attention.
February 6, 2025
read for school. lovely poetry and beautifully dark stories
June 16, 2017
Features some really beautiful writing, including "Revised Version" which is one of the best lyrical essays I've ever read.
October 10, 2024
Read this for Freshman year English II. Beautiful artistic view into how prolonged violent conflict can affect a a person and a society as a whole.
April 1, 2023
orality = weaponry? loss of identity inherently tied to fragmentation of speech which itself is tied to the destruction of the city?? ok ciaran i see you 👀
December 22, 2012
This poem was very jumbling and confusing and that's what the Poet wanted to show I guess
He used a lot of literature techniques and left sentences hanging
And it wasn't what was in the context it was what was behind it and what he really felt in this Belfast war thing
I guess the confetti meant fire going out like fireworks, or dead bodies, or objects, or even confetti itself
But overall I like how it was structed and was created in a way to show what was going on!
He used a lot of literature techniques and left sentences hanging
And it wasn't what was in the context it was what was behind it and what he really felt in this Belfast war thing
I guess the confetti meant fire going out like fireworks, or dead bodies, or objects, or even confetti itself
But overall I like how it was structed and was created in a way to show what was going on!
March 27, 2008
I loved this book of poetry. Carson's voice is gritty and urban but at the same time mature and intellectual. I don't know how he does it.
December 20, 2016
Review to come after class discussions, at the minute we're sitting on 2 stars but could be pushed up to 3 if the poems are given more context.
October 5, 2021
Belfast Confetti is a unique text that attempts to capture the multi-dimensional nature of place through various forms of writing: prose, poetry (elastic lines, lyrics, haikus), and creative essays. The text is meant to be read in order and each piece serves to contextualize and complicate the next.
Carson excels in his ability to capture emotional conflict. Whether it is the painful nature of hope, the fraternity of violence, or the terrifying fear of realization, these internal conflicts might also be described as a kind of ambilocation. In the short poem ‘Hairline Crack’, he narrates two stories: an ambiguous gunman and a specific woman caught in the crossfire. The first stanza uses variations of clichés to illustrate the ordinary progression of someone toward embracing violence. Carson writes, “Daily splits and splinters at the drop of a hat or a principle-….If only this, if only that, if only pigs could fly./Someone decides, hawk or dove. Ambushes are sprung./Velvet fist. Iron glove” (50). Carson illustrates both the ludicrous nature of violence and the everydayness of it, and expresses sarcasm for both the reasoning behind violent acts and the sympathy or surprise evoked by outsiders. The second stanza turns to a specific story of a woman in her car, “caught in crossfire, stooped for the dash-/ board cigarette lighter./In that instant, a bullet neatly parted her permanent wave. So/ now/ She tells the story, how a cigarette made all the odds. Between/ life. And death.” (50). Again, the extraordinary result of an ordinary act. The fraternity found in story-telling, especially those of survival and a midst violence connect the two stanzas in profound and disturbing way. The poem leaves the reader with a palpable sense of ambilocation.
The last poem, brings all these wandering narrations and themes of ambilocation home in the lines, “Like some son looking for his father, or the/ father for his son,/ We try to piece together the exploded fragments” (108). Which in turn, takes this reader back to the smell of bread in the opening poem ‘Loaf’ and transforms it into “two dogs meeting in a revolutionary 69 of/ a long sniff” (105) in the last poem ‘Hamlet’. And in a world “Which ‘only connects’ on any given bump on the road” (106), all that survives of the narrator’s personal memory is where he literally lived.
Finally, this reader is left staring at the map of a subsection of Belfast on the cover of Belfast Confetti and wondering what ‘given bump’ will create the “snowy galaxies” of ambilocation next reading, and where will the current one of my many selves end up when “the storyteller picks his way between/ the isolated stars” (107)?
Carson excels in his ability to capture emotional conflict. Whether it is the painful nature of hope, the fraternity of violence, or the terrifying fear of realization, these internal conflicts might also be described as a kind of ambilocation. In the short poem ‘Hairline Crack’, he narrates two stories: an ambiguous gunman and a specific woman caught in the crossfire. The first stanza uses variations of clichés to illustrate the ordinary progression of someone toward embracing violence. Carson writes, “Daily splits and splinters at the drop of a hat or a principle-….If only this, if only that, if only pigs could fly./Someone decides, hawk or dove. Ambushes are sprung./Velvet fist. Iron glove” (50). Carson illustrates both the ludicrous nature of violence and the everydayness of it, and expresses sarcasm for both the reasoning behind violent acts and the sympathy or surprise evoked by outsiders. The second stanza turns to a specific story of a woman in her car, “caught in crossfire, stooped for the dash-/ board cigarette lighter./In that instant, a bullet neatly parted her permanent wave. So/ now/ She tells the story, how a cigarette made all the odds. Between/ life. And death.” (50). Again, the extraordinary result of an ordinary act. The fraternity found in story-telling, especially those of survival and a midst violence connect the two stanzas in profound and disturbing way. The poem leaves the reader with a palpable sense of ambilocation.
The last poem, brings all these wandering narrations and themes of ambilocation home in the lines, “Like some son looking for his father, or the/ father for his son,/ We try to piece together the exploded fragments” (108). Which in turn, takes this reader back to the smell of bread in the opening poem ‘Loaf’ and transforms it into “two dogs meeting in a revolutionary 69 of/ a long sniff” (105) in the last poem ‘Hamlet’. And in a world “Which ‘only connects’ on any given bump on the road” (106), all that survives of the narrator’s personal memory is where he literally lived.
Finally, this reader is left staring at the map of a subsection of Belfast on the cover of Belfast Confetti and wondering what ‘given bump’ will create the “snowy galaxies” of ambilocation next reading, and where will the current one of my many selves end up when “the storyteller picks his way between/ the isolated stars” (107)?
April 26, 2022
"For everything is contingent and provisional..."
I had not read Carson before, and picked this up based on both the title and reviews. This is the mature work of a writer in full stride. Carson's language flows steadily, underpinned each moment by threat from watching eyes and listening ears. Even the language itself is a code, as anything 'provisional' can relate to the dictionary definition, and to the men in black balaclavas who stop you on the street or, more ominously, step out of the shadows. Pronunciation itself is a key to identity: do you say BEL-fast, or bel-FAST? And maps are suspect, "for they avoid the moment", changing with the needs of each age, with the growth of 'Peace Walls' and black-site jails. Everything with dual use: Walls whitewashed to hide graffiti also silhouette the soldiers for an easier target.
"And if time is a road, then you're checked again and again/By a mobile checkpoint."
This is a snapshot in time, of a Northern Ireland before the Good Friday Peace agreement. Of a place they hope to never go again.
I had not read Carson before, and picked this up based on both the title and reviews. This is the mature work of a writer in full stride. Carson's language flows steadily, underpinned each moment by threat from watching eyes and listening ears. Even the language itself is a code, as anything 'provisional' can relate to the dictionary definition, and to the men in black balaclavas who stop you on the street or, more ominously, step out of the shadows. Pronunciation itself is a key to identity: do you say BEL-fast, or bel-FAST? And maps are suspect, "for they avoid the moment", changing with the needs of each age, with the growth of 'Peace Walls' and black-site jails. Everything with dual use: Walls whitewashed to hide graffiti also silhouette the soldiers for an easier target.
"And if time is a road, then you're checked again and again/By a mobile checkpoint."
This is a snapshot in time, of a Northern Ireland before the Good Friday Peace agreement. Of a place they hope to never go again.
February 4, 2022
Four and a half stars
Carson expects his readers to do half the work and this is a good thing because it involves them. The poems and prose work together to evoke the feel and atmosphere of Belfast during the troubles.
Carson expects his readers to do half the work and this is a good thing because it involves them. The poems and prose work together to evoke the feel and atmosphere of Belfast during the troubles.
April 1, 2022
What a great book of poems. Carson’s use of both English & Irish is pretty dope. Definitely one to sit with.
March 20, 2025
this was pretty good. i really enjoyed the prose/essay pieces in it.
December 28, 2025
didn’t really hit me in the way i hoped it would. also not a fan of the way the stories are told and formatted
June 3, 2025
Literally the second poetry book I've liked ever.
November 5, 2025
“At times it seems that every inch of Belfast has been written-on, erased and written-on again: messages, curses, political imperatives, but mostly names, or nicknames – Robbo, Mackers, Scoot, Fra – sometimes litanized obsessively on every brick of a gable wall, as high as the hand will reach, and sometimes higher, these snakes and ladders cancelling each other out in their bid to be remembered. Remember 1690. Remember 1916. Most of all, Remember me. I was here.”
May 12, 2020
*RE-READ*
currently in contention against View With a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems for favourite book of 2019
currently in contention against View With a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems for favourite book of 2019
January 16, 2013
L'ennui a un nom : Belfast Confetti.
February 17, 2015
Hello, dissertation chapter. It's so nice to meet you.
October 12, 2024
Read this for my contemporary British literature class. I liked it but I like Heaney’s poetry better (hot take).
March 19, 2007
This is one of my favorite books of poetry and one of the best books I've ever read about place.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews