Ciarán Carson Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Calvin Bedient

Critical Essay by Calvin Bedient

SOURCE: Bedient, Calvin. Review of First Language, by Ciaran Carson. Poetry 165, no. 1 (October 1994): 31-4.

In the following review, Bedient notes that the poems in Carson's First Language are uneven.

In First Language, which won the T. S. Eliot Poetry Prize for the outstanding book of poetry published in Great Britain in the past year, Ciaran (pronounced keer-un) Carson's virtuosic verbal patter rains—no, hails—down like tinily-armed defensive contempt on contemporary Belfast. His previous books, including The Irish for No and Belfast Confetti (the title referring to crumbly brick used as a weapon), gave us a relatively uncarapaced Carson, very relative to be sure, but at least a personality with a history, with moments: “Roses are brought in, and suddenly, white confetti seethes against the window” (“Snow,” Belfast Confetti). Gave us his father, a postman (“My mother's version is, he lacked ambition”). And Belfast: “a helicopter trawls / Its...
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