The PlannersPoet: Boey Kim Cheng was born in Singapore and later migrated to Australia. He lamented the restrictions imposed on the citizens in his home country, Singapore. “The Planners” portrays his sentiments about what the government has done to raise Singapore from the 3rd World country to a 1st World Cosmopolis.

Title: The poet’s thoughts on the urbanisation of Singapore. He blames the urbanisation on “The Planners”

Structure: 3 stanzas (8lines, 14lines, 4lines) informal, not perfect like the city that he is talking about

Language

Imagery: Perfection

“All spaces are gridded” like NY, no free space for you to do what you want. If there is any

creativity left, you are confined and boxed in. “buildings in alignment with the roads” “meet at desired points” Everything is mathematically calculated and so perfect. When the

roads meet at “desired points” its not the desired point of the people but the desired point of the planners. They put them where they think its most convenient for them, they don’t care about the citizens of the country. Everything is straight ,fast and efficient as a straight line is fastest way to get to something.

“bridges hang in the grace of mathematics” without the planners calculations, the bridges would not hang in grace (sarcasm)

“erase the flaws” a large eraser running down the streets making all the “blemishes” disappear”

“The pilling will not stop” the builders just keep on adding floor after floor, pile the levels one by

one.

Personification: Cheng gives life to all the minute details that we ignore “gaps” are cracks in the road roads are “perfect rows/ of shining teeth” “sea draws back/ and the skies surrender” personification of nature to express their sense of defeat and how they

feel that the planners are destroying nature and taking up every inch of land they can

Extended metaphor:

Dental Dexterity “all gaps” in teeth are “plugged with gleaming gold” The cracks in the road is compared to the gaps in a teeth “The country wear perfect rows/of shining teeth” “Anaesthesia…so it will not hurt” Cheng compares “The Planners” to a group of dentists carrying out

“dental dexterity” on the city. The gaps are not filled with cement; they are filled with gold, which is not necessary. After all, no one would notice the gold on the ground. The planners use gold and wealth to cover the faults and flaws (or gaps) in the country.

“drilling goes right through” It refers to how the dentists drill our teeth before putting in the filling.

Similarly, the planners dig through the graveyard so that they can build their skyscrapers on top.

“Anaesthesia, amnesia, hypnosis” The exact same way that the dentists numb our mouths before the

procedure “so it will not hurt”. The planners do not want the people of the country to feel the pain of losing their heritage or culture. The government will do anything to make us forget the past so that we live in the future and will not question why. In addition, the government made everything straight and aligned so that everything is efficient and no one would have time to stop and think why are we living this way. In short, we have been brainwashed.

Juxtaposition: “knocks off with dental dexterity” When you knock something off, it does not require a large amount of

skill. Yet the planners do it so carefully. Why? “But my heart would not bleed poetry” The whole poem has expressed his negative criticism about the

planners and now he says that he will not write about this kind of failure? He then reveals that he does not want to offend the planners so that they would rebuild the past that they had destroyed. If Cheng was to interfere, then the past would be left demolished.

Tone: Critical/memory/helpless He is not angry but has given up on trying to make the planners

understand the plight of the people. He misses the culture and heritage that was present in the past. Although life is efficient and more convenient now, Cheng prefers the “good old days” as people nowadays have no care or concern towards their surroundings. Life flies before their eyes and they just go with the flow.

Theme:

Lack of freedom “filled with permutations of possibilities” but you are not permitted to

choose what to do with the piece of land, the government does.

Destroying the past to shape the future The planners “knock off useless blocks with dental dexterity” The “useless blocks” are actually old buildings or historical

monuments. Singapore hardly has a limited number of historical buildings as they have been torn down and made way for skyscrapers.

Determination “They plan. They build” “They build and will not stop”

This shows the determination of the planners to reshape Singapore. They will everything it takes to make the city perfect. “Even the sea draws back/and the skies surrender”. We can infer from this that the planners have used up every plot of land available up to the coast so now they are building upwards. This also shows the elimination of nature in the city.

Artificial Nothing in the planners has a meaning behind it. The “useless blocks”

which might have held historical moments are knocked off and the “fossils of last century” have been drilled through.

Lack of emotion Throughout the poem, Cheng describes the city using mathematical

words such as “permutations”, linked to numbers which have no expression. Numbers are heartless and cold. Similarly, the lack of heritage and culture mentioned exemplifies this point.