The City Planners by Margaret Atwood

Themes and Symbols

Structure of the poem

Linguistic/Poetic devices and their effect

Personification

The City Planners is a free verse written in 7 stanzas of uneven sets of lines ranging from 2-12 . The absence of uniformity in the structure represents Margarets belief in beauty in disorganisation, contrasting with the planners framwork respectively.

The poem doesnt follow a particular rhyme scheme.

Simile

Aliiteration

Irony/Sarcasm

Examples- "gradual as glaciers", "suprising as a bruise"

Tone: sarcastic, angry, disapproving

Urbanisation

Man vs. Nature

Originality and creativity

Examples- "straight swath", "wide windows"

Examples- "too fixed stare of the wide windows" "

Examples- "a splash of paint on brick surprising as a bruise"

The unformity in the houses, lacking innovation and imagination.

The poem hints of climate change.

The impact of urbanisation on nature.