Appreciation The Planners Poem 11th | The Planners Poem Appreciation

Appreciation The Planners Poem 11th | The Planners Poem Appreciation

Appreciation The Planners Poem 11th | The Planners Poem Appreciation
11th english all poem appreciation pdf | class 11 english appreciation
1) Cherry Tree Poem Appreciation
2) The Sower Poem Appreciation
3) There is another sky Appreciation
4) Upon Westminster Bridge Appreciation
5) Nose Versus Eyes Appreciation
6) The Planners Poem Appreciation

Appreciation The Planners Poem 11th | The Planners Poem Appreciation

Write the appreciation of the poem.
  •   About the poem / poet / title
  • Theme
  • Poetic devices, language, style
  • Special features / novelties / focusing elements
  • Values, message
  • Your opinion about the poem.
SOLUTION
Appreciation of the poem ‘The Planners’
The poem, ‘The Planner’, is a criticism of modernisation at the cost of the country’s history and heritage. The poet, Boey Kim Cheng, is an Australian poet of Chinese descent, born in Singapore. He expresses his disapproval of the unyielding building projects carried out by the planners. The poet’s country, Singapore, is being turned into a concrete jungle and losing its past in the process. 

The poem revolves around the theme of the preservation of history and nature against the onslaught of urbanisation. Though improvement is essential for a country, it should not come at the expense of losing its roots. And this is precisely what the poet is trying to convey through the poem. The poet has used a number of poetic devices like Alliteration, Antithesis, Inversion, Irony, Onomatopoeia, Oxymoron, Paradox, Personification, Repetition, and Tautology.

The language used by the poet is positive, but the tone is that of sarcasm. By portraying history and heritage as flawed, blemished, and useless, the poet is, in reality, mocking the planners; because it is the planners who are thoughtlessly destroying the past in their craze for a perfect future. The poet has written the poem in short lines, which show his curtness in criticising the planners and also the planners’ desire to build ceaselessly. The line ‘They plan. They build’ is an example of this as it shows the inconsiderate action of the planners implementing their plans without factoring in the people’s opinion.

The poet has used literary devices imagery and extended metaphor to clearly convey his emotions. The mathematical reference in the first stanza creates the visual image of all the structures being crammed into grids of various sizes, making them appear confined. The extended metaphor of dentistry in the second stanza conveys that the planners’ treatment of the ancient structures in the city is the same as a dentist’s treatment of a rotten tooth.

 The planners are adept at erasing blemishes and filling gaps to create a country with perfectly aligned buildings and numbing the people’s senses so that they don’t feel the pain of this transformation. In the last stanza, the poet says in a melancholic yet sarcastic tone that the new city does not inspire his creativity and that is why he would not stain this perfectly-structured world with his poetry.
The poet conveys the message of not losing the past in this day and age of modernisation, because without the past, a country would be nothing but a cluster of lifeless structures.

In my opinion, this poem is a fine read as it focuses on the severe consequences of rapid urbanisation on the history of a country, rather than the more commonly known effects on the environment.

Appreciation The Planners Poem 11th | The Planners Poem Appreciation

  Write an appreciation of the extract with the help of the following points (100-150 words).

  • About the extract
  • Theme and significance
  • Poetic style, language, poetic devices
  • Inspirational message
  • Your opinion and critical evaluation of the extract
Answer:
The poet Boey Kim Chang, a Singapore – born Australian poet is pained to see the destruction of nature in the name of modernization. He points finger at the city-planners by referring them as “they” and in the process distances himself from them. He hints that these are powerful people who bring the changes with mathematical precision and the public is hypnotised to accept the charges without any protest. The public is happy with the glamour of modernization like a dental patient feels happy to get a new set of teeth replacing the rotten ones by an expert dentist.

The extract is written in free verse to give vent to the flow of the thought of the poet smoothly. The extract is sarcastically presented with the help of a number of figures of speech like personification, alliteration, metaphor. The poet laments the destruction of the ancient and the nature. The lines are irregular but these imperfections appear perfect to me because of the emotional appeal of the poet.

Appreciation The Planners Poem 11th | The Planners Poem Appreciation

Write the appreciation of the poem.
Answer:
The poet, Boey Kim Chang, a Singapore – born Australian poet, is pained to see the developments all around him, which in the name of modernization, is encroaching into nature and destroying the heritage with a lot of precision.

The planners have not been given any specific identity. They are mentioned in the poem as “They” but their work is very minutely scrutinized to present them as powerful people who can easily fulfill their purpose because they have the financial strength to manipulate all voices against them. But, according to the poet, they do their job with a lot of planning and their work is also logically designed. They are not bothered to save the nature as their only concern is the maximum utilization of space.

The accuracy of the planners has been sarcastically compared to a dentist who can identify the rotten tooth easily, extracts it and fills up the gap with the shining tooth. The person concerned is happy to get a new set of teeth and comfortably forgets the past. The same process is applied by the planners to rewrite history by destroying the past, and replacing it with the glamorous new construction.

The people are so mesmerized by the new-found charm that they are in a state of trance to have the amnesia of forgetting what has been replaced. The replaced beauty is tactfully presented by the planners to have an anaesthetic effect on them. Like the archaeologists, the planners also drill but their purpose is not to search glory or history, but destroy the soul of the past.

The poet refuses to resort to any creativity such a situation since he does not consciously want to stain the present by messing up with the blue print of the so – called advancement. He may be suggesting that the change is in the hands of the people and they need to act the way they want to see the future.

The poem has no particular rhyme-scheme as the poet’s thoughts flow freely to express his emotions on the depletion of nature and burying of the past. The short lines in the beginning, “They Plan”. “They build”, without directly referring who “They” are, the poet sets the planners apart from the readers. But the poem is full of sarcasm against the planners to express the poet’s displeasure. He has used a number of figures of speech to create an awareness among the readers.

The poem brings out a strong nostalgic emotion of the poet and his thoughts are moving around to search for the existence of natural beauty or glorious past. That is why, the lines of the poem are irregularly arranged – some lines run into the next, not like the precision of the planners. These irregularities have got an appeal to the readers because sometimes imperfections also appear perfect.

Appreciation The Planners Poem 11th | The Planners Poem Appreciation

About the poem/poet/title

Boey Kim Cheng is a Singapore – born Australian poet . The poem is about the planners / developers. The poem is in free verse form. It has no particular rhyme scheme. Title of the poem is self-explanatory.  

Theme
The poet describes the unstoppable force of modernisation in the poem. He memorises his past. He talks about the replacement of natural environment by the concrete jungle.

Poetic devices/language/style
The use of alliteration in the poem added rhythm. Extended metaphor of dentist makes the poem live. The poet has used paradox, climax, oxymoron and sarcasm in the poem.

Special feature / novelties/ focusing elements
The poet is nostalgic about his old city. When we come across modernisation around us we feel the echoes of his words.

Values/message
In the name of modernisation the nature has been exploited. The people became helpless.   

Opinion about the poem  
The poem is a mirror to the modern society. In the beginning the poem depicts what the planners do. In the middle the poem describes what the planners achieve. Towards the end we come across how the poet is affected due to modernisation 

Appreciation The Planners Poem 11th | The Planners Poem Appreciation

    They plan. They build. 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
    in the grace of mathematics.
    They build and will not stop.
    Even the sea draws back
    and the skies surrender.

    They erase the flaws,
    the blemishes of the past, knock off
    useless blocks with dental dexterity.
    All gaps are plugged
    with gleaming gold.
    The country wears perfect rows
    of shining teeth.
    Anaesthesia, amnesia, hypnosis.
    They have the means.
    They have it all so it will not hurt.
    So history is new again.
    The piling will not stop.
    The drilling goes right through
    the fossils of last century.

    But my heart would not bleed
    poetry. Not a single drop
    to stain the blueprint
    of our past’s tomorrow.

    Appreciation The Planners Poem 11th | The Planners Poem Appreciation

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    Appreciation The Planners Poem 11th | The Planners Poem Appreciation

    11th english all poem appreciation pdf | class 11 english appreciation
    1) Cherry Tree Poem Appreciation
    2) The Sower Poem Appreciation
    3) There is another sky Appreciation
    4) Upon Westminster Bridge Appreciation
    5) Nose Versus Eyes Appreciation
    6) The Planners Poem Appreciation

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