Planners By Kim Cheng Flashcards
1-2
They plan. They build. All spaces are gridded,
filled with permutations of possibilities.
1) ‘they’ anaphora:
-emphasises importance of these planners (have the capacity to break down poet’s homeland)
-3rd person: creates distance between speaker & they
2)Caesura: gives poem methodical feeling
+ ‘gridded’ (technical language & start-and-stop pace) mimics planner’s unemotional & orderly developments
3) ‘p of p’ suggest that the planners are determined to make the most of every inch of land
—>There’s no room for free space / organic growth in their vision of the speaker’s country.
3-6
The buildings are in alignment with the roads
which meet at desired points
linked by bridges all hang
in the grace of mathematics
everything has been thought of in advance; the planners have designed everything so that it is ideally functional and convenient
Enjambment: emphasizes the grace the speaker describes
Odd syntax in line 5 (arrangement of words) :
-suggests there’s something sinister about the idea they all hang together in this calculated precision
-hanging can mean execution, —> this mathematical perfection might be deadening
7-9
They build and will not stop.
Even the sea draws back
and the skies surrender.
speaker doesn’t just have a problem with the mathematical soullessness of the planners’ designs, but bc planners “will not stop” building
soft Sibilance: highlight the quiet of nature vs the noisy construction
planners’ so-called progress causing nature to retreat:
-the sea and sky “surrender” as if they were soldiers in a war being battled by humans and the earth.
-“surrender” of nature highlights speaker’s helplessness
—>If “[e]ven the sea” can’t escape the planners, how can the speaker hope to change anything?
10-14
They erase the flaws,
the blemishes of the past, knock off
useless blocks with dental dexterity.
All gaps are plugged
with gleaming gold
‘knock off useless blocks’= sharp assonance & consonance
-creates sweeping force, as if planners destroy old structures w/ no thought of what they might mean to people
METAPHOR:
-Planers are as fast / efficient / emotionless as a dentist pulling teeth
- buildings replaced with/ rich, shiny new ones
- harsh ‘g’ sounds = create feeling of being gagged or chocked
-gold isn’t proof city is being beautified, it suggests people w/ most money decide country’s fate & others have to shut up & accept it
15-17
The country wears perfect rows
of shining teeth.
Anaesthesia, amnesia, hypnosis.
image suggests symmetry, functionality, and beauty VS those gleaming teeth sound pretty sinister: teeth bite!
personification ⬆️ unease:
Country doesn’t have straight teeth, it-‘wears’ them —> implies ‘perfect(ion)’ is false / a disguise
-dangers of disguise
1: anaesthesia —> planners are numbing the citizens to the pain of loss
2: amnesia —> w/ all the pain of “the past” erased by shiny new development, the citizens lose their memory of their history
3: hypnosis —> w/out their memory of the past, they become “hypno[tized]” & easy to control
18-23
They have it all so it will not hurt,
so history is new again.
The piling will not stop.
The drilling goes right through
the fossils of last century.
‘’They” repetitions : suggest planner:s “piling” & “drilling” will continue until nothing of country’s history left
‘It won’t hurt’: nobody feels pain bc of blindness caused by money & planners
Fossils - connotes history, visual image of planners ruining it
24-27
But my heart would not bleed
poetry. Not a single drop
to stain the blueprint
of our past’s tomorrow.
Describes speaker’s inability to bleed poetry in a shiny / ahistorical country
-suggests they feel utterly helpless / hopeless
METAPHOR
-blueprint = a technical building plan
- suggest planners’ are using development to assert rigid / emotionless control
- speaker feels no space for human heart in all this scheming , country has lost its soul
Form, meter & rhyme
Form —> free verse w/ often short and clipped lines:
-evoke the rigid new landscape speaker describes
Meter —> free verse:
speaker resisting planner’s perfectionism
Rhyme —> no rhyme:
reflects poem rejection of rigidly ‘gridded’ layout of country
Theme the cost of modernity
speaker finds rigid conformity disturbing
- in the process of making everything more efficient, planners have erased the country’s past and inhabitants’ sense of who they are
-the cost of all these gleaming skyscrapers and hanging bridges = the country’s very soul
-On the surface, it seems technological improvements are a good thing & that the country is being enriched by all this planning
BUT: it’s all too seamless and controlled & has ruthlessly stripped of humanity
Theme human progress VS. nature
In their endless, unchecked quest for perfection / profit / efficiency, “planners” are destroying the natural world
in personifying nature, the poem emphasizes that all this so-called progress is in direct confrontation with the earth
