The Planners - Kim Cheng Boey

Question 1

Themes? (3)

Answer 1

Nature, Urbanisation, Modernity,

Question 2

Tones? (3)

Answer 2

Resolute, hopeless, critical

Question 3

Context? (2)

Answer 3

-Boey Kim Cheng was born in
Singapore in 1965, the year that the
country became an independent
republic.
- Boey emigrated to Australia.
Displacement became a major theme in Boey’s work: he first felt there was no place for him as a poet in Singapore, then felt like an outsider in his adopted country.

Question 4

Meaning and purpose?

Answer 4

• The Planners” presents a bleak view of modernization.
• The “Planners” of the poem’s title ceaselessly build up an unnamed country (likely inspired by Boey’s native Singapore) with mathematical precision, eliminating all marks of human imperfection in the process.
• Though these designs are technically “perfect,” the speaker finds such rigid conformity
  disturbing

Question 5

Language? (4)

Answer 5

• Extended metaphor of dentistry to convey the constant makeover of the cityscape; the demolishing of old buildings is compared to the extraction of the “useless blocks” of
  teeth. This speaker clearly sees the process of planning and modernisation as destructive, obliterating the past.
• Metaphor of the fossils refer to the
  buildings of the last century; the drilling mercilessly destroys them – the destruction of the past (history, culture) The fossils are a source of connection with history and
  identity. The speaker wishes he could
  “bleed poetry”: that he could use
  metaphorical blood to stain the blueprint, disrupt its overt neatness, to mess it up, to counter with poetry “the graces of mathematics”.
• in personifying nature, the poem
  emphasizes that all this so-called progress is in direct confrontation with the earth.
• Sibilant sounds highlight the quiet of nature as compared to the noisy
  demolition and construction of the human world. Gold thus symbolizes the country’s wealth and prosperity, but also the greed.

Question 6

Form? (4)

Answer 6

• Lines are enjambed perhaps to mirror the ongoing pursuit for perfection and the power over nature.
• Anaphora of ‘they’ emphasise the
  anonymity yet again. The planners are like God, they have it all, will never stop.
• Monosyllabic “Anaesthesia, amnesia, hypnosis” the uncluttered line emphasises aggressiveness and
  ruthlessness in the destruction of
  history.
• The caesura after “plan” and “build”
  give the poem a methodical feeling.
  Enstopped- matter of fact.

Question 7

Structure? (3)

Answer 7

• The poem is divided into three stanzas of uneven length with lines also of uneven length. Sentence length is varied and there is no regular metrical rhythm.
• The poet has included irregular rhyme which provides some unity in an otherwise unstructured poem.
• This free-verse structure is ironic, a
  statement of rebellion, as the essence of the poem is the theme of control and regularity, not only in buildings but also in life.