2. the planners, boey kim cheng

• poem summary

  planners' obsession with order and regimentation turns a utopia into a dystopia

  convenience and efficiency are prized over human relationships and spontaneity

  planners stand for superficiality and bland efficiency: our poet has no place in this city's grand designs
• they plan / they build / they erase the flaws

  they: murky, anonymous, sinister plural pronoun

  dichotomy between poet and planners

  'us vs them'

  reader made fearful of the power of the ambiguous planners
• plan / spaces / points

  semantic field of geometry/mathematics

  planners seem more mechanical/algorithmic than human
• possibilities / desired / grace

  initially positive semantic field: all is working as intended

  much thought has been given to design, both for aesthetics and functionality
• they plan. they build.

  caesurae

  the clunking and chugging of manufacturing is replicated in the poem's very sounds
• desired points / linked by bridges

  heavy enjambment

  relentless forward progression is imitated in the march of the lines
• they build and will not stop

  imperative: signifies their ever-enthralling ambition
• even the sea draws back, and the skies surrender

  semantic field of defeat

  as if defeated in battle, retreating from unstoppable onslaught of concrete + steel
• dental dexterity / shining teeth

  extended dental analogy

  planners care only about the cosmetic appearance (veneer of order) of the city rather than true wealth

  analogy is malign: planners are trying to surgically remove 'rotten' old edifices for new, unsettlingly perfect ones
• dental... plugged, gleaming gold

  alliteration: guttural gs and dental d's

  we hear the speaker's asperity towards the planners
• anaesthesia, amnesia, hypnosis

  soporific, placated semantic field

  inhabitants lulled into believing no damage has been done in its city's creation

  citizens' memories reduced to a withered short-term loop

  this validates planners due to lack of resistance

  mind, memory and body all dulled

  tricolon underscores planners' oppressiveness
• but my heart would not bleed poetry

  shift to personal pronouns

  even if poet martyred himself to protect the city, the efficient machine of the planners would continue to plough through its remains
• will not stop / will not stop / my heart would not bleed

  planners' ceaseless efforts are epistrophically emphasised