Poems City Planners - 15330 Words

The Poems analysed are: The City Planners, Margaret Atwood and The Planners, Boey Kim Cheng. These are taken from the IGCSE Cambridge Poetry Anthology, but may be interesting for unseen poetry too. Question Set How do these poets use language and structure to get across their theme? I wrote this in about half an hour. Both poems are very similar, and have the same topic - City Planning - as shown in their titles. Structurally, they are different though, and the tone differs in places. Ive marked headings for each paragraph to show, roughly, what each one is about, with major areas in CAPS (see my post on STILTS as a way to compare poems) This paragraph analyses: similarities in SUBJECT as shown in the title; similarities and†¦show more content†¦The cutting here is less abrupt and violent, though most lines are end-stopped or punctuated, giving a tighter feeling of control than Atwood’s frequent enjambement over lines and line-breaks. ‘They’ seem faceless, powerful, focussed on the ‘new’ and ‘tomorrow’, in wiping out the old. They ‘erase’ with ‘dexterity’, which could suggest hiding, or removing in a negative sense - as suggested by words like ‘amnesia’. Yet the poet seems to have some admiration for their planning as he describes it with words like ‘grace’ and ‘gold’ and suggests they have control over the elements: ‘the sea draws back / and the skies surrender. This is a stainless, blank planning though, with no place for the unusual, quirky or individual and the poet mourns this, quietly wh en he says that his heart would not write ‘poetry’ for it (though this is ironic as he has, in fact, put it in a poem). Perhaps he is showing that he does not feel a sincere love for it in his heart. Summary Margaret Atwood finds the identical houses of suburbia offending to the eye. There is nothing to set one house apart from another. The houses look like clones of each other, even the trees are uniform and the roads are so level, they seem to be rebuking the dent on their car. The houses seem soulless and boring. They have been designed by unimaginative city planners who have no spark of creativity. Silence pervades suburbia; the only intruding sound is of the lawnShow MoreRelatedThe City Planners and the Planners Comparison836 Words   |  4 Pagesthe poems ‘The City Planners’ and ‘The Planners,’ how do the poets create an effect of disillusionment and discomfort? In the poems ‘The City Planners’ and ‘The Planners,’ the poets create an effect of disillusionment and discomfort through the purpose and scenario and through their use of imagery and diction. The Poets create disillusionment and discomfort through the purpose and scenario. In ‘The Planners,’ the poem talks about how ‘They,’ the planners, have total control over the city andRead MoreHow do the poets convey their disapproval of the strong impact that modernization has on Singapore?900 Words   |  4 PagesSingapore? In this young developing world around us, people everyday become more obsessed with perfecting the appearance and facades around them. Everything seems like they could surely take on a makeover. 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Often focusing on scenes of public leisure - especially scenes ofRead MoreLiterature Marking Scheme9477 Words   |  38 Pagesquestions on each set text. Paper 2 1 hour 15 minutes Unseen From a choice of two question, each requiring critical commentary, candidates must choose one. One question is based on a literary prose passage and the other on a poem or extract of a poem. Candidates answer one question from each section and must choose at least one passagebased and one essay question. No set texts for this component. All Assessment Objectives are tested All Assessment Objectives are tested.