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  1. “The Planners” presents a bleak view of modernization. The poem’s title ceaselessly builds up an unnamed country (likely inspired by Boey’s native Singapore) with mathematical precision, eliminating all marks of human imperfection in the process. Though these designs are technically “perfect,” the sRead more

    “The Planners” presents a bleak view of modernization. The poem’s title ceaselessly builds up an unnamed country (likely inspired by Boey’s native Singapore) with mathematical precision, eliminating all marks of human imperfection in the process.

    Though these designs are technically “perfect,” the speaker finds such rigid conformity disturbing; in the process of making everything sleeker and more efficient, these planners have effectively erased the country’s past and, with it, the inhabitants’ sense of who they are. The cost of all these gleaming skyscrapers and hanging bridges, the poem implies, is the country’s very soul.

    The Planners Poem Summary

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  1. Following poetic devices/literary devices have been used in the poem The Planners: Alliteration: When two or more words close together in a line begin with the same consonant. For example, “permutations of possibilities”, “skies surrender”, “dental dexterity”, “gleaming gold”, “Anaesthesia, amnesia”Read more

    Following poetic devices/literary devices have been used in the poem The Planners:

    1. Alliteration: When two or more words close together in a line begin with the same consonant. For example, “permutations of possibilities”, “skies surrender”, “dental dexterity”, “gleaming gold”, “Anaesthesia, amnesia”.
    2. Assonance: When two or more words close together in a line have similar-sounding vowels. For Example, “linked by bridges”, “build and will”, “knock of useless blocks with dental dexterity”.
    3. Caesura: When a line is paused halfway roughly, by punctuation. For Example, “so history is new again. The piling will not stop.”
    4. Enjambment: When a line continues into the next without a pause, maintaining sense, as in the whole of the last stanza.
    5. Metaphor: When the rows of new buildings are called shining teeth, this is a metaphorical use, exchanging one for the other which helps deepen meaning and adds fresh imagery.
    6. Repetition: The use of “They plan….They build” and so on reinforces the idea that the planners are anonymous, yet powerful.

    The Planners Poem Summary

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