The planners analyse.

Boey Kim Cheng is a Singapore-born Australian poet , of the 21st century, from Chinese origines. He received a lot of degrees, linked with litterature. The poem « The planners » is about his native town.

They plan. They build. All spaces are gridded,

filled with permutations of possibilities.

The buildings are in alignment with the roads

which meet at desired points

linked by bridges all hang

in the grace of mathematics.

They build and will not stop.

Even the sea draws back

and the skies surrender.

They erase the flaws,

the blemishes of the past, knock off

useless blocks with dental dexterity.

All gaps are plugged

with gleaming gold.

The country wears perfect rows

of shining teeth.

Anaesthesia, amnesia, hypnosis

n this poem, Boey Kim Chang describes Singapore, which was a city really planned from the start.

At first, the poet says that the city is being really organised,gridded and won't stop being changed. He says that it's made by the grace of mathematics. He also says that « the sea draws back and the skies surrender » which could mean that they're even controling nature, which is impossible. It seems like nature is afraid of this. Nature is taken over. The poet criticizes industrialisation. « Shining teeth » for instance, is a reference to dentistry, which is very organised. Everything has to be perfectly aligned.

The structure of the poem is really organised too. It's very rigid, unmoving and looks really controled. Just like buildings, skyscrapers.

In the second stanza, the poet says that the planners « erase the flaws, the blemishes of the past », which could indicate that they try to create a perfect city, with no flaws, and totally controled by them. « The drilling goes right through the fossils of last century » could mean that they destroy history to build something better, and newer. They destroy anything that is useless to them « knock off useless blocks ».It seems like a city where order is more important than anything.

The poet uses the word « gridded », which could refer to a jail. It shows that they want to tame nature. « Anesthesia, amnesia, hypnosis » means that we are brainwashed, hypnotised and orchestred by « they » to forget the past.

In this poem, it seems like there is no humanity at all. The whole poem is about buildings, spaces, the city...But not people.

In the last stanza, «but my heart would not bleed poetry. Not a single drop to stain the blueprint of our past's tomorrow » shows how robotic and unhuman we become, and he says that poetry as being an art, would have an effect on us, that would « stain » everything they've built.

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