The title ‘Belfast Confetti’ is very informative it tells us that it is in Belfast, capital of Northern Ireland. Belfast is a beautiful place filled with stunning scenery and fields; it is also a very religious and politically minded city. ‘Confetti’ gives us a first impression of happiness, joy, celebration and special occasions but ‘confetti’ in this poem means a radically different thing, the complete opposite of joy and happiness.
The poem is about an Irish civilian caught in the middle of a dirty minded terrorist attack, many innocent people like himself were caught in the rain of fire that these terrorist inflicted on the streets of Belfast. He and the innocent civilians of Belfast find themselves in a dehumanising, frustrating situation because they could get charged their own lives due to the terrorist assault, i think a great deal of impotence must be surrounding these people because they have no reason or fault to be caught in the middle of this hell hole surrounded by arm personnel, tanks and military objects with no escape.
The structure of this poem is irregular and presented in a unusual fashion. In the poem its structure is presented in one long line and then a couple of words in the next sentence and carries on like that throughout the poem ‘trying to finish a sentence’, this reflects in the chaotic state that the streets of Belfast find itself in. The terrorist have attempted due to political reasons and the military personnel and authorities have interfered because there is a huge risk of death and fear for the innocent bystanders and they are also there to lock up these wanted terrorist and exterminate them from putting the country at risk. It is unfair for the civilians because they could lose their lives when they don’t really deserve to lose them; they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and there is no escape from this epicentre of conflict filled with flying object being bombarded at them such as nuts, bolts and nails which could really cause some damage when fired at a high speed.
The main character in this poem is the innocent civilian (speaker) he is local and we know that because he knows the name of all the streets. He is a innocent, uninvolved civilian getting on with his everyday life and unintentionally been caught in this mess, he just wants to live a peaceful life but the terrorists don’t allow it because he and many others are victims of this. The terrorist just want to do as much damage as they want and destroy. The authorities are also being very intimidating by bombarding these shocked and scared people with questions.
The poet is very clever in the way he uses his techniques of words to marry the significance of the poem and the way he is showing us when we read it. For example he uses punctuation to show the conflict that is happening in the poem, the poem also shows a paragraph with no punctuation, this is confusing just like the poem itself ‘Belfast is like a paragraph with no punctuation’. He also uses the names of streets which are named after famous battles and wars. He uses words like labyrinth representing that there is no way out or if there is a way its very complicated to escape.
