Comparative Essay

In Literature we read different poems from "Songs of Ourselves", which is a book with poems from different authors. We had to explore how the authors convey feelings through landscape in 2 of the following poems: The city planners, Summer farm, Sonnet composed..., The planners and Where I come from. I chose "The city planners" written by Margaret Atwood and "The planners" written by Boey Kim Cheng.

"The city planners" written by Margaret Atwood is a poem where the author criticizes the perfection of a city meanwhile in "The planners" written by Boey Kim Cheng he describes how a city is being changed and perfectiones. Throughout this essay the different feelings and landscape used to describe what each poet feels and sees about the city will be compared and analysed. 

In the first stanza of "The city planners" we get to see the author is offended by the order, she feels that the whole city is pointing at her for having a dent in the door of her car and that the grass is discouraged to keep growing because they will mown it again and again. As to convey that she feels like someone is rebuking her or to say that she is offended, Margaret Atwood uses the landscape. She describes the city as sanitary and that everything looks tidy or perfect. "No shouting here, or shatter of glass" Atwood says in the first stanza.

In the second stanza, the author sees things that are not perfect from her car and she also mentions things that she does not see as perfect and things that will become imperfect in a future. The different items that seem to disturb the order of the city are "the smell of spilt oil", "a splash of paint on brick" and "a plastic hose poised in a vicious coil". According to Margaret Atwood, all those imperfections allows to see the "landscape behind or under the future cracks in the plaster".

As in "The city planners", in "The planners" by Boey Kim Cheng the structure is similar. In the first stanza the author describes the perfection of the city referring to mathematics. "All spaces are gridded, filled with permutations of possibilities", Cheng says. Everything the planners fix, is in perfect proportions, all "the buildings are in alignment". The planners are conquerors according to the author, "Even the seea draws back and the skies surrender". In the second stanza the planners erase the city past mistakes as if they were dentists. "They erase the flaws, the blemishes of the past...", "the country wears perfect rows of shining teeth", this is how Cheng conveys the planners are erasing what has happened in the past by covering them as if they were dentists fixing someone's mouth.

Boey Kim Cheng explains that he cannot make poetry with the city perfection. The imperfect city was poetic because it had history, but now there is no history to write about. "But my heart would not bleed poetry", Cheng conveys how he feels about the perfected city.

Throughout this essay the different feelings and landscape used to describe how each poet feels and sees about the city had been compared and analysed. Both Boey Kim Cheng and Margaret Atwood dislike the idea of the cities being perfected, either because they are no more poetic or because they make them feel wrong about the way they are.