The City Planners - Margaret Atwood

the
/
around
and driving
Cruising these residential Sunday
to church
people go thankfulness , as noted
worship suburb anic area
in Christian tradition

streets in dry August sunlight: → hearthesumm# perfectly normal and even

shows that
holidays speaker describing peaceful thing to do

what offends us is
,

society 's wants are

something that
initially seems pleasant '
-

unattainable
columns are arranged
the sanities:
and
" rows

↑
5 the houses in pedantic rows, the planted warmth and invested in the sanities
, suggesting that societies wants / satisfaction
happiness
sanitary trees, assert
does not meet to standard
up

:*
levelness of surface like a rebuke +
clear right away that
thereisnoroomforcreatiui-y.in#b0rih9 " " "" 9

describing
to the dent in our car door.
as
trees
of
trees as
/ \ indication
sanitary life
No shouting here, or design art

10 shatter of glass; nothing more abrupt

driving around with

than the rational whine of a power mower

as if all the

interesting > free ,

the dent
cutting a straight swath in the discouraged grass.
in

↳
natural > sees her door as a marker
growing of of
reality ,

shapes have been

about a reminder that
unusual
way to speak nothing is
perfect all the time

heriˢÑ
removed from them
something unnatural

speaker notes how quiet and "

rational
"
the world around # " " """
the is " ° "

But though the driveways neatly

grass discouraged

.⇔÷"
this August day -

fwm growing by the mower

1.
_
sidestep hysteria " " "

÷:
"
"

15 by being even, the roofs all display

÷:* "
" """
description
-

same .

perfection preciseness
the same slant of avoidance to the hot sky,
>

3 before revealing what it

⇔
certain things: roofs are built with the

t
the smell of spilled oil a faint nice number

sickness lingering in the garages, has smell

of paint
20 a splash of paint on brick surprising as a bruise,
unwanted
preciseness towards the
←
( suburbs suburb is new

a plastic hose poised in a vicious

[
has connotations of
as new
places / houses
unnecessary
coil; even the too-fixed stare of the wide windows the smell of
↑
" " ⇔. paint is bizarre
a ,, ,, , ,, ,,, , , gang ,, g, , .am µ , g. ya ,
brief insight
:* .
,

""
↑
give momentary access to smell of
"

spilled oil
' '
and "
splash of paint
a "
alliteration on a brick

the landscape behind or under

that she is as
"

says surprising as a bruise

"

↓
↓ painful brings to mind
/ \
25 the future cracks in the plaster seem to stare the stark nature of a blue or shocked
astonished undecent
smell
< Purple bruise on light -

enjambment they're too fixed on

to
emphasise "" "
red skin describes how the
the next line single Objective >

when the houses, capsized, will slide

on a

smudged of paint felt to her

ayam , men ,
obliquely into the clay seas, gradual as glaciers > to
used describe the coiled hose
sitting outside
that right now nobody notices.
9

[
the By depicting the ↳ me -

The
image of hose
speaker the as a
snake waiting to
houses as future sinking "" " e
" 99 "" that there
doesn't have any is is
emphasises on
or glaciers ,
the speaker something deeper
hope and thinks that
title name
ship ,
that they
and going on in this residential neighbourhood

That is where the City Planners

,
suggesting
the Perfect facade them are
doomed
>
planners
have
Perhaps the people who live driven as
crazy
30isn't with the insane faces of political conspirators
the city ,
there are being
metaphor
created going by their world as the
speaker is

are scattered over unsurveyed

[
to last > This
of life
manner , so
carefully planned
in these final lines
possible
territories, concealed from each other,
and
predicted can't last Human nature air as
vanishing
.

,
and
to read the snow

[
with how
is fundamentally at odds it .

climate crisis
and

each in his own private blizzard;

indicators of the
~

trying
to put impactful city planning can be on a

\
metaphor
political ↑ green economy
.

)
together some
are scattered
people
world immoral plot
guessing directions, they sketch
the
around
> ungrammatical .
suggests that she's
trying

,⇔anaww↳µ.,*e+a**^→"" " " " " µµap.,a

man ,,, , , gn , ,
of
g , , ,, bounds what is
outside the
step
35 transitory lines rigid as wooden borders
to
last lines
the and perfect and
convey
.

in ordered
decline of
of steady
on a wall in the white vanishing air
a
something
structure
two stanzas .

simile -
" att" " " " '
,
µ , e
a. µ, , trying to confine and

tracing the panic of suburb contain

human
creativity
is
and
the last
line , finalizing for the

nature Of
image
.

reader their

order in a bland madness of snows what residential

is like
neighbourhood
with these lines ,
concludes
directions
J guessing to determine
the reader
suggests that surveyors allowing
could come next
don't know
where
if anything
they
are going
?⃝