In this essay I am going to be writing about the poems Belfast Confetti (Ciaran Carson), Tiananmen (James Fenton), No more Hiroshimas (James Kirkup).
I am going to be looking for the imagery, style, sound effects and the overall effect that the poet uses to create different feels in their poems. I will be contrasting and comparing the poems. The three poets and their poems are written in different styles to one another.Starting with the poem Belfast Confetti, this is describing the troubles in Northern Ireland. This is probably the poem that stands out the most with its use of imagery and the references to the punctuation marks. This poem starts of in an urgent fashion; "Suddenly" it is covered with the "riot squad" and they have to face with the exploding vehicle.
Carson even details the missiles that rain on the troops:"Nuts, bolts, mails, car-keys".He uses the signs of exclamation and punctuation marks to create two possible effects; the effect of him typing on the typewriter creating the sound effects of "rapid fire", or by actually using the imagery of the punctuation to indicate the missiles with the exclamation mark (!) and an explosion with the asterisk (*).This poem uses imagery to great extent as well as using sound effects. The "burst of rapid fire" is in a staccato rhythm following the imagery of the "hyphenated line" again showing rapid fire, - - - - - - - -.Carson, being Irish himself, knows the area very well as he shows in the first line of the second stanza."Balaclava, Raglan, Inkerman, Odessa Street" are all names of streets he has chosen, but these street names are all names of previous wars and battles.
They also have a common theme with the military hardware,"A Saracen, Kremlin-2 mesh. Makrolon face-shields. Walkie-talkies." These all have a harsh sound to their names.
Carson's attitude to this poem is one of confusion and not knowing where to turn or what to do next. The poem concludes confusion and uncertainty as Carson forgets his name, location and destination. He does not mean he has literally forgotten his name but he is emphasising the state of confusion in the region. He ends with a mixture of imagery of the battlefield and his own armoury of punctuations:"A fusillade of question-marks.
"This poem has a very distinct form; it uses many onomatopoeic sounds and poses many questions. The short nature of the sentences makes it similar to Tiananmen.The poem Tiananmen is about the massacre in Tiananmen Square and the following cover up. The poem has a tone full of suppressed anger.
The poem takes a regimented form with short sentences and rhyming stanzas. Unlike Belfast Confetti, this poem uses more sound effects than imagery. The imagery used is very literal:"Thrown on the pile,Thrown on the pile"These two lines are indicating the attempted cover up of the government by burning the massacred bodies. This is a subtle poem where the irony of the situation builds up and then the point of the poem is made more powerful with the monosyllable rhythm of the poem. In contrast to Belfast Confetti this poem has many repetitions such as the word "Tiananmen" which stresses the importance of the occasion.
Lines that need emphasis are also repeated such as:"Thrown on the pile,Thrown on the pile.""Keep it dark,Keep it dark."The first of these two is the vivid imagery used in the poem telling us of the bodies being thrown on to the funeral pyres. The second, "Keep it dark" is warning us to keep the events of Tiananmen Square all hush as there was the following denial of the events.The sound effect and the rhythm of the whole poem resembles a child like chant or a marching tune.
But again, there is an ambiguity of whether it is the students marching again or the army marching back to silence the students. This poem has no special vocabulary like Belfast Confetti that uses specialist terms. The whole poem is set out in simple to read, child like monosyllable words.There is more ambiguity in the last stanza where there is the repeat of the first five lines of the first stanza. There is remark of" And you can tellWhen they'll come againThey'll come againTo Tiananmen.
"This is suggesting that either the army or the students will be back again. This is similar to Belfast Confetti as in both poems there is a sense of ambiguity, short sentences and they both use sound and imagery to add to their effects.The poem No More Hiroshimas is different to the previous two poems as it conveys its message of the atrocities of Hiroshima using description and some imagery rather than concentrating on the imagery and sound effects. James Kirkup uses many descriptive words in his text to and goes into detail, "soiled nude-picture books".Kirkup concentrates on the word new and in creating a feeling of emptiness and of an "artificial" town.
He suggests that there is and will always be a memory and the city will not recover as does the river which "remains unchanged, sad, refusing rehabilitation". All the efforts to cover up the past are described as "frippery".The form of this poem is in eight un-rhyming, irregular formed stanzas. It uses mainly descriptive writing to show the events of Hiroshima unlike the poem Tiananmen that used the marching sound effects to put across its point.
In the eighth stanza, Kirkup uses the imagery of the vivid items in the museum"...the bits of burnt clothing,The stopped watches, the torn shirts,The twisted buttons,The stained and tattered vests and drawers,The ripped kimonos and charred boots.
..."Kirkup uses the description of the basic clothes that people wear such as the vests, drawers and kimonos to show how the blast affected even the 'normal' people and to make the public relate to the blast.
All the lines begin with the word "The" emphasising the importance of these items and playing with the sound of the lines.However out of the whole poem, the two lines that strike me the most and that are the most different from the other poems are the last two lines,"Remember only these.They are the memorials we need."These lines show how, unlike the other poems, Kirkup plays with the emotions of the reader, telling the reader to remember the items of clothing, and the signs of the recovering city. This poem has an emotional effect casting the readers mind back to the pictures of the blast and making us empathise with the people of Hiroshima.
Kirkup, throughout the poem stresses on the point that the town stills remains affected by the blast, till today by repeating the line about the river twice in stanza 2,"The river remains unchanged, sad, refusing rehabilitation."Overall the poem that I feel has the strongest impact on me, the reader is Tiananmen. Fenton uses the powers of sound to make a mark on the reader and to stress the dictatorship rule of the Xiaoping regime at the time.
