The Planners - Boey Kim Cheng

The Planners

Boey Kim Cheng

Summary: The poet talks about progress, and how they can be boring in the sense that we organize everything so neatly and that there is no more mystery left in the world. Every single thing is perfectly done until it is wrong to be human and make a mistake every once in a while. So he starts to wonder; is this form of progress a good thing or a bad thing?

Significant poetic devices and their significance (eg: Metaphors, symbols, rhyme scheme, form, imagery, repetition… etc)

Structure level analysis

1.       There is no indentation at all and every line start at exactly the same area. You could draw a line through the beginning to use as a backing and all would remain in line. This could exemplify the accuracy, the level of perfection that we find in progress. One could argue it also deals with the boredom of having the same thing structure in the same way, thinking that it is ‘perfect’ and cannot be improved anymore, similar to how every building in a city looks more or less the same while every tree in the forest are all differently structured.

2.       Free verse: gives a sense of irony in the “mathematically designed” city in which no creation is actually ‘free’ to express ideas.

a.       This could have been used by the poet as a form of rebellion over conformity.

b.      Alternatively he could have been addressing the issue of a small case of rebellion over robotic and repetitive thinking every single day, and to show that there is still a sense of originality and people who have not given up. And they are hiding in places where you least expect it, in the fabric of the poem itself.

Word level analysis

1.        Throughout the whole text, we can find a repetition of the word “They", all put in capitals, which can illustrate the fact that it is a title rather than referring to a selective group of people. Rather throughout the poem the poet is talking about the same group of people.

a.       He could be referring in this way the multinational companies and conglomerates that run the world.  They are the ones that spur on progress. “They plan. They build…”

b.      On the other hand he could be using personification to refer to progress as an entity itself that changes the way we see our world, our city in a way that helps them develop.

2.       Note the technical terms found in the first few lines of the poem. “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”. These indicate the fact that the thought of progress is already so ingrained into the minds of society (and already ingrained into our vocabulary) that it is already in our instinct to progress and no longer a choice.

3.       We can also see another form of personification towards the end of the stanza.

“Even the sea draws back
and the sky surrenders”

This implies that even nature fears the course of progress and is retreating to give way to allow these things to happen. It also exemplifies the fact that even nature sees progress as something being more powerful than it, which is an unprecedented event.

On the other hand, the poet can be dealing with the problems of environmental degradation that comes with development and how development always comes at a price to the environment. We always find cases of illegal logging or deforestation, and the waters being polluted with litter. He can be giving nature human attributes so that we can empathize with them more easily, and perhaps make us realize that development always has a cost.

4.       The first three lines of the second stanza emphasize on the perfection of progress.

“They erase the flaws,

The blemishes of the past, knock off

Useless blocks with dental dexterity”

The first line already describes perfection itself – a lack of flaws.

Any imperfections of the past, we knock off.

We get rid of anything useless, indicating maximum efficiency with the new world of progress, with dental dexterity. When we usually think of dentists, we usually think of how everything is sterile, how the dentist is always so calm and collected and how everything he does is completely exact and accurate, which is the implication of the poet at this time. He wants us to note that correction that we make that is caused by the past is knocked away perfectly, never a wasted movement.

5.       “The country wears perfect rows of shining teeth”, of course the poet here is talking about the buildings, and how they are constructed in perfect rows, with the very slight variations in height and structure making it look as if the city has teeth. It is perhaps in this sense that the poet is bringing us back to a day with the dentist, and how movement is perfect from him. The use of the word “teeth” that is a animal attribute gives the implication that the city is a physical entity and is alive, contrary to the way we perceive it. The fact that they are shining teeth also exaggerates the perfection of progress.

6.       “Anesthesia, amnesia, hypnosis. They have the means. They have it all so it will not hurt.”

Note the power of three happening here.

a.       Also not how they are all terms used to fooling the brain into doing something that it was not originally planned to do. It is here that the poet tries to make us wonder ‘is progress making us think differently? Is it changing the way we view the world as? Have we begun to become too soft, or too unused to the natural world or a world without progress?’ I find that not doing homework for a day is painful, perhaps this is one of the things I should question ‘is this feeling normal? Or the work of progress?’ Not how the syntax of the sentence and the use of the word “they” make it look as if you are about to undergo a life changing procedure and they are telling you not to worry, when in fact you really should.

b.      On the other hand, it can make us wonder ‘is it normal to not take these things at all? What is wrong with being a little bit human? Is there a drug for everything that we have? And if so, what is it then that makes us what we are if not for our flaws? This question as addressed by Blur in their work entitled The Universal, where there was a drug for feeling that you had and it made you wonder ‘isn’t it normal to have these feelings?’ at that point in time it was very normal to take anti-depressants to make you feel happy, or to take painkillers when you felt physically pained. Aren’t these feelings what make us human? What are we then, if not for the emotions and feelings that we have?

c.       Alternatively, the words mentioned (Amaesthesia, amnesia and hypnosis) form images connected to plastic surgery, and therefore the re-modelling of one’s aspects. Hypnosis also suggesting manipulation of one’s thoughts to create this “seemingly” perfect world. It could also deal with the fact that although we consider these things to be perfect, they are not real at all and that in reality it is impossible to be perfect. It is these imperfections that make us who we are.

7.       “The piling will not stop.
The drilling goes right through
the fossils of last century”

It is here that the poet is once again trying to reinforce the fact that progress is already so ingrained into our heads that we cannot help but continue to progress. It will keep going no matter what, giving perhaps a sense of hopelessness and inevitability and a lack of control over what we observe.

Note that it says “goes right through the fossils of last century”. Fossils are the only thing we have left that connects us to the past and the fact that we are drilling right through them destroys them. He is perhaps saying that progress has destroyed our interpretation of the past as we try as much as we can now to look more into the future. How many times do we know or predict more about the future than look back at its past? The poet here tries to point out the fact that when we look to the future, we must never forget to look back on the past as well, so that we don’t repeat the same mistakes twice.

8.       “But my heart would not bleed

poetry. Not a single drop
to stain the blueprint
of our past’s tomorrow”

It is here that the author says ‘hey maybe development and progress isn’t a bad thing. And even if I felt it was I would keep my actions to myself, because I wouldn’t do anything to stop it’. Take note that a blueprint has already been set up for the future, indicating that we already have a plan. The author says that he would do nothing to stain that blueprint to mess up the measurements of any of the plans. His heart would not bleed poetry, something regarded as a work of art, something that we do not really think about in progress, where most of the work we find is left brained. 

Lastly, the two words “past’s tomorrow” is an oxymoron and it is used to exemplify the fact that ‘we are already living in the future, and what you do already determines the future – the future is in your hands and I would do nothing to change it.’ Perhaps here the poet is saying that he will do nothing to change and that ‘we should be the change we want to see in the world’.

9.      Juxtaposition in the line “grace of mathematics” where grace  moves freely, in unrestrained strings, yet mathematics is made up of rules and straight, unrestricted lines.  

Speaker of the poem: The writer himself, a victim (or a fortunate person) to be able to witness progress in front of his eyes, Boey Kim Cheng.

Speaker’s attitude toward the subject of the poem:  Sitting on the fence, conservative, not taking sides, saying things as they are in his opinion, although not at all biased.

Paired poems (Identify poems in the anthology and why they are appropriate to be paired)

1.      The City Planners towards the end as she addresses the conspirators of the City Planners, similar to how the poet in The Planners addresses the unknown plans of progress, or the multinational companies that spur progress “They”

Memorable lines

1.       “They plan, they build. All spaces are gridded.”

2.       “The sea draws back and the skies surrender.”

3.       “Anaesthesia, amnesia, hypnosis’’

4.       “Not a single drop to stain the blueprint of our past’s tomorrow”