“Belfast Confetti” and “Yellow Palm”
“Belfast Confetti” and “Yellow Palm” are both majorly set around the imagery language used, and the effects of the devastation happening to the communities. Both poems are similarly themed; “Belfast Confetti” depicts the aftermath of a bomb during the troubles that people in Belfast experienced. The poem “Yellow Palm” follows a similar theme, portraying the problems which are present in Baghdad.
Looking at the different structures and forms used in both poems, they contrast the difference between one speaker being confused, and not knowing what’s happening, to a very loosely structured ballad. Within the poem “Belfast Confetti”, Ciaran Carson does not present any type of metre or rhythm, by doing this he created a sense of the poem being seen and read with confusion, like the people felt after the bomb was detonated. An example of this can be seen in the quotation “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...” The quote expresses the poet’s usage of enjambment and incompletion of sentences creating an effect of confusion and chaos to the reader.
On the other hand “Yellow Palm” uses repetition and rhyming to create an atmosphere of the speaker walking down the street, and pointing out the things that he sees and hears. By using the ballad scheme the lively rhymes contrast to the context of the poem, with iambic lines alternating between long and short. Seen in the quote :“As I made my way down Palestine Street, I heard the call to prayer ,and I stopped at the door of the golden mosque, to watch the faithful there, but there was blood on the walls and the muezzin’s eyes, were wild with his despair” With this the poet is able to represent the effects on the community and lives around him presenting to the reader the