Poems: City Planners
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. I've 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 differences in TONE, point of view or attitude of the poet / narrator; how Atwood's tone shifts quite noticeably and the effects of this on the reader.
Both poems use the word Planners in their titles and both deal with cities as their topic, focussing on the structures and organization of urban spaces. Kim Cheng uses the third person ‘they’ to create a sense of distance - of us and them, whereas Atwood uses the inclusive ‘we’, to suggest that this experience of cities is one that we can all relate to and share. Her attitude - and the narratorial tone of the poem - seems negative. She uses words like ‘offends us’, ‘discouraged’, ‘avoidance’, ‘sickness lingering’, including the semantic field of illness. These seem mostly quiet, and passive, but as the poem progresses, she shifts into a more violent tone, with ‘hysteria’, ‘bruise’, ‘vicious’, ‘capsized’, and ‘insane’.
How the TONE of the second poem is different to the first:
In contrast, the language of the Planners seems to have a far more positive tone: ‘possibilities’ ‘desired’ ‘gleaming’. However, this is the planners’ view, which is not shared by the poet. He describes the planners’ vision using a rule of three, as ‘anaesthesia, amnesia, hypnosis’, which suggests control,
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. I've 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 differences in TONE, point of view or attitude of the poet / narrator; how Atwood's tone shifts quite noticeably and the effects of this on the reader.
Both poems use the word Planners in their titles and both deal with cities as their topic, focussing on the structures and organization of urban spaces. Kim Cheng uses the third person ‘they’ to create a sense of distance - of us and them, whereas Atwood uses the inclusive ‘we’, to suggest that this experience of cities is one that we can all relate to and share. Her attitude - and the narratorial tone of the poem - seems negative. She uses words like ‘offends us’, ‘discouraged’, ‘avoidance’, ‘sickness lingering’, including the semantic field of illness. These seem mostly quiet, and passive, but as the poem progresses, she shifts into a more violent tone, with ‘hysteria’, ‘bruise’, ‘vicious’, ‘capsized’, and ‘insane’.
How the TONE of the second poem is different to the first:
In contrast, the language of the Planners seems to have a far more positive tone: ‘possibilities’ ‘desired’ ‘gleaming’. However, this is the planners’ view, which is not shared by the poet. He describes the planners’ vision using a rule of three, as ‘anaesthesia, amnesia, hypnosis’, which suggests control,