city planners

The city planners by Margaret Attwood, and the planner by boy Kim chen both have the same focus namely their criticism of dictated lifestyles and restricted living in the form of tightly planned and controlled cities. Attwood’ poem is written about a planned city which hasn’t been inhabited yet, while Chen refers to a functioning city, probably Singapore which is stifling him. These are actually the smaller differences when dealing with these two poems. Even though they deal with the same topic and share similar ideas, they differ vastly in their thematic and stylistic approaches in bringing out their views. Atwood’s mastery of language is clearly evident in her use of combining verbs and nouns together to create deep insightful new meanings, Boy on the other hand does have deep ideas but these are unfortunately not conveyed and expressed as well as they could be, leading to convoluted meanings and seemingly simplistic metaphors

Boy starts off his poem rather well, with a powerful mechanical feel emphasized by his use of sound in the line “They plan. They build. All spaces gridded / filled with permutations of possibilities.” Here the pounding effects of the short sentences and hard consonants in the words “permutations” and “possibilities” create a mechanical automated harsh feeling of cold artificial distance. His use of sound creates the effect of an almost military regime crushing, pounding the civilian population back into place. The rigorous feel of a completely planned environment is evident through though line, “ the buildings are in alignment with the roads / which meet at desired points”. This outlines his feelings about planned cities and their restriction on freedom. Unfortunately this strong clear starting stand is convoluted in the following line, “ grace of mathematics”. This is a beautiful and a stylistically accomplished line due to the personification of mathematics as a dancer. Unfortunately this conveys a beautiful pleasant image, which contradicts the harsh criticism he wishes to deal out. Following this Boy includes a very clichéd description, “the sea draws back / and the skies surrender”. He is trying to convey nature’s opposition to the work of man and its ever-growing cities and artificial environments. The alliteration of the ‘s’s in “sea”, “draws”, “skies” and “surrender” are effective, due to the vivid stormy imagery they create, but these lines seem out of place here and not very original. By shifting the focus from the restriction of freedom created by a planned city, to the mathematical beauty of its structure, to the suffering of nature, serves only to confuse the reader and is therefore an ineffective way of conveying his ideas.

Boy then draws upon an elaborate dentist metaphor to capture what it is like to live in a planned city, “dental dexterity”. Though the descriptions of this metaphor are effective in parts, the very thematic concept of capturing the feeling of oppression by comparing it to a visit to the dentist’s office seems rather simplistic in its outlook and scope. Only the very basic of human emotions, namely discomfort and fear are conveyed by the use of such a metaphor, this leaves out the possibility of touching upon deeper issues and a more insightful description of the state of a populations morale in a planned city. Boy does manage to convey the brainwashing that happens in a planned city, “ Anesthesia, amnesia, hypnosis / They have the means, They have it all so it will not hurt”. Here we get a feel of how the government can quell the populations ability to think for themselves and how, “the country wears perfect rows / of shining teeth” due to the order and efficient functioning of a planned city. These are valid and deep ideas, especially Boy’s reference to “history is new again”, where he conveys the government capability to create their own history for a city because it doesn’t have a soul anymore and cannot create its own history. The problem lies instead in his expression of these ideas namely the dentist theme and later on the need to sound overly poetic leading to a completely overcomplicated stanza, “ but my heart would not bleed / Poetry. Not a single drop / To stain the blue print of our past’s tomorrow.” The metaphorical comparison of blood and poetry is effective in the vivid visual and associative imagery it creates, but the phrase “past’s tomorrow” is totally uncalled for and ruins any effect left over from the previous line. Boy wishes to convey the idea that his ability to create poetry has been taken away from him by the tyranny and oppression of his planned and sterile environment. One would think, that such an environment would actually inspire a poet to fight back and open his heart to a flood of poetry, but then again maybe its too difficult to budge the concrete blueprint “of our past’s tomorrow”.

Margaret Atwood on the other hand, has a slightly different stylistic approach to the same theme. She doesn’t rely on a few simple all encompassing metaphors but spreads her ideas out across a number of interesting and thought provoking examples of language. Her poem starts off with one such example, “ cruising these residential Sunday streets in dry August sunlight;” the phrase “residential Sunday” conveys the fascinating idea of Sunday residing in the “dry Autumn sunlight” which is another beautiful use of language. The personification of Sunday and the dreary description of dryness helps to set the scene for her criticism of planned cities and the boredom and stagnation they create. This dreary description of the planned city is continued with the phrases “pedantic rows” {which creates the image of a row of well disciplined students whose freedom have been restricted}, “sanitary trees” {which creates the image of neatly ordered and sterile nature, a binary opposition because nature should be wild and free} “discouraged grass” {an effective personification of grass, suggesting that even the lawns cant tolerate this sort of philosophical oppression}, “rational whine” {a very interesting combination of words, whines are usually the product of uncontrolled or overflowing emotions not rational thought, another effective binary opposition.}, “straight swath” {the alliteration here emphasizes the incongruity the two words as a swath is associated with a long curved sweeping gesture, definitely not something straight} and “assert levelness” {another unsettling binary opposition as levelness is usually associated with bland indifference and definitely not with assertiveness}. The combination of the depressing, sterile, heavy and monotonous effect creating by the meaning, sound and personification of these phrases along with the interesting choice and combination of words which serves to unsettle the reader by creating a sense of incongruity through binary opposition, all serves to suggest that something is naggingly and deeply wrong with the environment of the planned city.

This extremely stylized and unique use of language to convey her message is continued in the next stanza where we encounter phrases such as “sidestep hysteria” and “plastic hose poised in a vicious coil”. The line “sidestep hysterias” is a sarcastic reference to the neatly ordered driveways, which are too neat and ordinary. The kinetic imagery and personification of something abstract such as hysteria sidestepping makes this descriptive phrase effective, memorable and above all original which is a questionable characteristic in Boy Chen’s poem. The line description of a “vicious coil” creates powerful imagery associated with serpents. Something as naturally mundane as a plastic hose seems threatening in these uncanny, and unnaturally artificial surrounding.

Atwood introduces an interesting theme in the next stanza, which is similar to Boy’s but conveyed in a more original manner. This theme describes nature reclaiming the land the city has taken from it and turned into an artificial and unnatural environment, “ when the houses, capsized, will slide / obliquely into the clay seas, gradual as glaciers/ that right now nobody notices.” The vivid image of houses capsizing into “clay seas” is unique and effective and the sea metaphor here is conveyed with flair of originality. The unusual combination of water, something fluid and dynamic to clay something cloying and sticky [like the cloistering environment of the city] is extremely effective.

Finally Atwood’s poem is concluded by the reference to the city planners and their twisted ideals along with a beautiful parting line. The description of the city planners as being” concealed in his own private blizzard” clearly conveys what Atwood feels about the city planners ignorance towards the restrictive and cloistering environment they are creating. The phrase “private blizzard” is what adds the far-reaching effect to this line as Atwood clearly conveys her views about the policies of the city planners. The last line of her poem is supremely effective, “ tracing the panic of suburb / order in a bland madness of snows”. The blizzard metaphor is continued here and is another indication of Atwood’s vivid image based style. The binary oppositions of “panic of suburb order” and “bland madness” is a further continuation of the unique and startling style she has used throughout the poem, in order to convey her views by shocking and unsettling the reader by combing words, ideas and phrases which would normally clash with each other; they still do but they have gained a colorful, memorable and original effect in this poem as well.

In conclusion, though both poems share the same purpose of criticizing the idea of planned cities, they do so in vastly differing stylistic and thematic manners. This leads to a difference in the effectiveness of both poems. Boy’s poem has some good ideas, which challenge the idea of a planned city, but these are hampered by his lack of clear expression as well as overly generic themes {dentist metaphor}. Atwood on the other spreads her views against planned cities across a wider variety of power packed linguistic expression in the form of short gripping phrases, which serve to provoke and unsettle the reader thus leading to a much more effective expression of her views on planned cities.