SOURCE: Batten, Guinn. “Ciaran Carson's Parturient Partition: the “Crack” in McNeice's ‘More Than Glass’.” Southern Review 31, no. 3 (summer 1995): 536-56.

In the following essay, Batten explains the Irish concept of “crack” and how Carson employs it in Belfast Confetti.

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was Spawning snow and pink roses against it … There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses. 

—from “Snow,” by Louis MacNeice

                                                                                          I broke open the husk so many times And always found it empty; the pith was a wordless bubble. 

Though there's nothing in the thing itself, bits of it come back                     unbidden, Playing in the archaic dusk till the white blip became                     invisible. 

… Roses are brought in, and suddenly, white confetti seethes                     against the window. 

—from “Snow,” by Ciaran Carson

The Irish have a word for those experiences that raid not only the border between the...