THE POEM

Cruising these residential Sunday

streets in dry August sunlight:

what offends us is

the sanities:

the houses in pedantic rows, the planted

sanitary trees, assert

levelness of surface like a rebuke

to the dent in our car door.

No shouting here, or

shatter of glass; nothing more abrupt

than the rational whine of a power mower

cutting a straight swath in the discouraged grass

But though the driveways neatly

sidestep hysteria

by being even, the roofs all display

the same slant of avoidance to the hot sky,

certain things:

the smell of spilled oil a faint

sickness lingering in the garages,

a splash of paint on brick surprising as a bruise,

a plastic hose poised in a vicious

coil; even the too-fixed stare of the wide windows

give momentary access to

the landscape behind or under

the future cracks in the plaster

Margaret Eleanor Atwood

BORN

18th November 1939

Ottawa Ontario, Canada

Occupation

Author, poet, journalist

Education

Master of Arts - English Literature, Radcliffe College

Awards

Man Booker Prize (2000)

POEM SUMMARY

The poem ‘The city planners’ by Margaret Eleanor Atwood is about the poet visiting a new suburb in the city. As she travels through it, she is offended and sickened by the newly built suburb being clean and sterile. Atwood believes that the suburb will soon be run down and that the pristine landscape she sees is only temporary.

IMPACT

“when the houses, capsized, will slide
obliquely into the clay seas, gradual as glaciers

that right now nobody notices.”

 

In this sentence, Atwood tells using a metaphor and a simile that eventually each of these houses will sink into the ground. The poet uses "clay seas", referring to the crumbled dust of the other houses around it. With the use of the simile “gradual as glaciers” alliteration is also used to emphasise the significance of the of device. Line 28 summarizes that “nobody”  - being the people of suburbia  - sees this dark future.

 

This is worth saying because it allows the reader to see the short lifespan of this perfection. It adds strong imagery through the extended metaphor of a boat capsizing and points out that nobody right now can see what’s happening

“guessing directions, they sketch
transitory lines rigid as wooden borders
on a wall in the white vanishing”

 

“Guessing directions”, and “they” refers to the architects, as it uses the language  of design, such as “sketching”, “lines” and other techniques familiar to architects.

This is worth saying because it tells us that the poet does not even have faith in the planning of these city planners. It creates a feeling of randomness and brevity.

“But though the driveways neatly
sidestep hysteria”

 

The conjunction “but” adds continuity between stanza one and two. The phrase talks about how the forms of the driveways can represent the suburbia as a whole, just barely avoiding becoming disorderly or hysteric.

This is worth saying because it shows that every small thing has been planned meticulously, to just avoid compulsivity and over cleansing while still having strict backings

“each in his own private blizzard”

 

This sentence makes a comparison with the people of the suburbia and a blizzard, saying that the people inside the blizzard do not have any vision to the outside world or reality.

This is worth saying because it provides a useful analogy for when we imagine the scene, giving it a sense of depth and a closed-in feeling that we would otherwise not pick up on.

“order in a bland madness of snows”

 

the metaphorical term “snow” links back to line 33, talking about the people of the suburbia, and the real estate agents in particular being blinded by the metaphorical “blizzard”, and how the “snow” adds a layer to hide the madness beyond the suburb.

This is worth saying because, again, it provides that extra detail in creating a strong mental image of the scene. It is a very powerful statement which sums up a lot of what the poet is trying to paint in our minds about how order in a by nature unordered environment is almost impossible.