The two poems I will be comparing are ‘at the border’ and ‘Belfast confetti’. At the border is based on a poets description of her refugee journey from Iraq to Kurdistan whereas Belfast Confetti is based on terrorist attacks in Belfast during the Irish civil war. At the Border is about a past conflict. Hardi describes that she had a thick iron chain between her feet indicating she was some form of prisoner. In comparison to Belfast Confetti, Hardi’s at the border is more based around a physical conflict whereas Carson’s Belfast Confetti is based on a mental and physical conflict.

When Hardi says ‘The land under our feet continued divided by a think chain’, it could be implying that she is a physical prisoner. In comparison to Belfast confetti, Carson says ‘I was trying to complete a sentence in my head, but it kept stuttering’. This shows that Carson is a prisoner to his mind. The similarities between these poems is the background history. The Irish civil war is to do with two parts of society fighting for their faiths, the Northern Irish fighting to stay Protestant and the Irish fighting to make Ireland Roman Catholic, while at the border is about Sunni Muslims fighting the Shi’ite Muslims. Both of these poems are based around nations divided for what each faction believe in.

The poems are both written in a first person narrative. Hardi describing her journey back to her country and Carson describing his journey of escape from war. In both poems, the poets could both be considered refugees or asylum seekers. Both poems have examples of emphasis. Hardi uses it in her poem right at the beginning for the purpose of setting the scene. She says ‘It is your last check-in point in this country!’. Comparing it to Carson’s use of emphasis there is a huge difference. The difference is that the emphasis used is put into words rather than punctuation. Carson writes ‘it was raining exclamation marks’. He uses the word exclamation marks to describe something sudden that has happened at that point in time.

Belfast Confetti is a very significant title compared to At the border. The reason I say this is because it is a very ironic title. For the time of which this poem was written it would be considered juxtaposed. Belfast at the time was a place of war and confetti is a thing that would be related to happiness and joy whereas at the time Belfast would be linked to war, crime and death. Confetti could be a metaphor for shrapnel. The reason I would link it to shrapnel is because of the following reason. Shrapnel and confetti only have one thing in common, that is that they are both small and go everywhere. The contrast between these two poems is that, At the border’s title is much less of a metaphor wheras Belfast confettis is a juxtaposed title with confetti being a metaphor for shrapnel. At the border is a much more litteral title.