The reader knows that Betjemen hates Slough because he is talking about destroying the town with bombs-all the people wants to change it. We know that the poet hasn’t change his mind about bombing Slough because he says; “…get ready for the plough…” and “…Come friendly bomb and fall on Slough.”
The way the poet uses bombs to destroy the town is a good thing for him because he wants all the people out of the town because the people is already destroying the town with their architecture and so on.
The poet dislikes the bright canteens and all the tined food. And all the new architecture. Because he doesn’t want people to mess around in the country. He wants to protect the country from unwelcome change.
He criticize the man with a double chin, who always win and washes his skin in women tears, the bald young clerks and their wives. The poet dislikes the people because they talk about sports and makes of Tudor cars. It is these people who are doing the worse destroying of the town. The poet has sympathy for the bald young clerks, because it is not there fault they are mad. He doesn’t dislike them.
The poem is about a bomb that went off in a city called Belfast, and it is a war. The poet describes it in confetti. A metaphor is used to describe the fall out bombs when it explodes. The title is a paradox because it is a statement that seems to contradict itself. But which contains a truth.
Associations of words-confetti suggest weddings. In a modern political context, Tony Blair’s government have tried to wed the loyalists to the nationalists through ‘The peace process’. But when negations break down, violence ensues.
The poet use exclamation marks to say it was absolute chaos when the bomb went off all the bits and pieces was falling from the sky. Example of punctuation mark is exclamation marks, nuts, bolts, nails. This could mean the big business has blown up because of the paper with the nuts and bolts and nails on it. And then a question mark to end it – to ask the question because he and everyone is confused.
Comparison with ‘Slough’: Carson’s poem is more figurative. He uses metaphors to describe the shock of a very literal and brutal occurrence. Betjemen’s poem is the opposite: Betjeman is very literal and direct, “Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough”, But the event it self – the raising of a town to the ground – is imagined, not real.
“ Itself – an asterisk on the map”. This hyphenated line, a burst of fire… I was trying to complete a sentence in my head, but it kept shuttering.”
What is my name? Where am I going? Where am I coming from? A fusillade of a question-marks. To get ready for the plough. The cabbages are coming now. The earth exhales.
There is no rhythm in the poem and no rhyme. The poem is about war. The poet in Slough has anger because he wants to destroy the town. And the poet in Belfast Confetti feels disbelieve because of the that is already destroyed.
Slough is about the poet that wants the town to be destroyed and Belfast Confetti is about the poet’s city that didn’t want his to be destroyed but is.
