A new feature of the blog. I think Irish fiction since WW2 has been a little bit safe but Irish poetry has been booming since at least the 70's when, partially as a response to the Troubles, N Irish verse suddenly, er, exploded...The circle that formed around Queens University has produced Nobel Prize winners, Pulitzer Prize winners and winners of virtually every other important literary award. Among the poets from this circle are: Seamus Heaney, Ciaran Carson, Paul Muldoon, Derek Mahon, Tom Paulin...to name but a few. I'll also include stuff that's being going on south of the border and the exciting new generation of poets from all over the island. This month's offering is Carson's Belfast Confetti:
Belfast Confetti
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 askerisk 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.
I know this labyrinth so well - Balaclava, 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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33 comments:
I like it.
Great idea. I look forward to more.
Glenna, Seanna
Thanks, one a month I think wont tax anyone's patience.
I like the poem and the idea. I could do with a bit of culture to help me get through long Saturdays at work. Interesting too that the city fathers of 1850s Belfast were as keen to celebrate military stupidity as the city fathers of St Kilda.
Well, we're a sorry lot if we can't handle one poem a month. The phrase Belfast Confetti should of course be familiar already to all of us here.
I'm curious about the comment aboout Irish fiction playing it a bit too safe. Not that I want you to name names, but could you expand a bit on what you mean? Or why you think that is? Is it just that no one wants to talk about unpleasant events, or what exactly?
I'm fairly sure that American fiction has taken a wrong turn somewhere too, though I couldn't diagnose it.Not to make a blanket statement, but I have a hunch that the exaltation of the MFA as credential idea has a lot to do with it. My apologies in advance to any MFAs out there.
David
Yeah its funny that. Raglan, Inkerman and Odessa streets all just round the corner. And of course I'm a block away from Tennyson St.
Did you ever read Flashman at the Charge? Its one of the better ones.
Seana
Well if you look at what Joyce and Flann O'Brien were doing in 1940and then look at what came after in the 50's, 60's and 70's its pretty tame stuff. Irish fiction I fear has been very staid and conservative on the whole.
I hope this doesnt sound like self justification but I think that these days genre writers are often able to be a bit more playful and interesting than our literary fiction colleagues.
I think it is one reason why I tend to gravitate toward reading crime fiction more and more anyway.
I probably really shouldn't promote B.R. Myers truly scathing critique of Freedom because I think he's way too harsh on the book itself,but I think the points he makes about the state of ambitious non-genre fiction is pretty interesting.
Seana
Oh Jesus, I didnt hate the book that much. In fact I didnt really hate it at all, not enough to get worked up about it.
I thought Patty's journal was a riot.
Well, he seems to write about all fiction like that, judging by my dabbling in A Reader's Manifesto a few years ago. I think he's right about the general trends, but misses the appeal that a novel like Freedom can have.
I've heard that Franzen never reads his reviews, which in this case I think is just as well.
I first read the beginning of Patty's diary as an excerpt in the New Yorker, where it just reads third person, so I was shocked that it was somehow meant to be Patty talking about herself in the third person, and this was a shock I never completely got over.
Flashman is one of my favourite characters and At the Charge one of the best in the series. And GMcDF was born in Carlisle (the city not the St).
A bracing reminder of the power of punctuation. Thanks.
======================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Seana
I wish the whole novel had been that good.
David
I think my favourite is the first one. I sent it to my little brother just before he deployed with the British to Afghanistan. He appreciated the joke.
Peter
You're welcome.
We middle-class outsiders to troubles, lowercase or upper, sometime wonder: How do people live through that? How do they process the information? How do they convey the information in ways that don't make us roll our eyes?
That poem offers one answer. Hell, its title offers one answer.
Peter
Speaking of hell Carson's version of Dante's Inferno won a couple of translation prizes.
I think this is a great new feature and I look forward to it. Belfast Confetti is a term a was not familiar with, but after reading the poem, it made perfect sense. Liked it very much.
It would be an interesting exercise to read his "Inferno" with "Belfast Confetti" in mind.
Peter
I havent read Carson's Inferno, I was promised a signed copy by a certain bookshop owner in South Belfast but alas the fellow overcome by fame as a hero of a Colin Bateman novel and his new found friendship with James Ellroy has forgotten his promise. Such is life.
Sean
Glad you liked it. Carson's collection "The Irish For No" is the one read. (There is no Irish word for no.)
You could also read the prologue of Dead I Well May Be.
Yeah, those bald guys stick together, don't they?
I knew that thing about the no Irish word for no, but I still don't get how it works in practice. Do they just say yes, but scowl a lot?
Seana
Brian Boru: "Connor I need you to be in the front line in our attack against the Vikings."
Connor: "I couldnt possibly do that, Brian. I've just become a new father."
etc.
Ah.
The Irish have no word for no? That's interesting, must make for some creative conversations with kids not being able to simply say no.
What about the parents who can't, though, Glenna?
Seana, yeah, that's what I meant. I suppose that should have read - That's interesting, must make for some creative conversations, with kids, not being able to simply say no.
Or maybe I just read it wrong, Glenna.
No 'no' in Irish does put a whole new spin on Molly Bloom's "Yes" for those Ulysses readers among you. Although I don't exactly what that spin is.
Not having been a poetry fan in general, but having found a few poems I've liked, including by Seamus Heaney, I think the addition of a monthly poem is a good thing.
Then everyone can discuss it.
I find the phenomenon of no "no" in Irish to be interesting.
So many children I know adamently say "NO" when they first learn to speak, and do so very often at two.
So how do Irish-speaking children express their oppositionalism at a young age?
Any Irish women poets?
Kathy
Plenty of great Irish female poets. Next month's for example...
Even I like that and I avoid poetry if I can.(In fact I skipped it when you posted it)
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