"Wear a mask or two,
It will make you a person anew".
Said the peddler , crouched on his seat,
Many masks, he carried in a heap.
White and blue, small and cute,
He carried masks of many a hue.
He said " You'll get far ahead in life ,
It will help you be many a people like".
The little boy on his side,
Couldn't get all of this inside.
"Why do I need it ? ", his voice squeaked.
The old man's plea had his interest peaked.
The child thought and sighed,
His mother called from behind.
" With this one name and a few masks ", the old man cried,
"You can be whatever you like".
" A little lie and a little truth ,
And life lets you through".
The child now , now a young man, sighed
As he remembered what the old man cried.
Sitting under lights on the street,
On top of an old , wooden seat,
" I should have bought a mask or three",
He thought staring across the street .
Across the street ,
A big house with a golden tree.
He wondered " It would have been mine to keep,
If I had just bought a mask or three".
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Hi there Tanishka! Niteowl here to review this poem.
Man, talking about masks just hits differently these days, haha. But it's clear you're talking about the metaphorical kind here. Overall, I like the story of this, how the child doesn't see why you would wear a mask, while the man wishes he had. The rhyming is pretty good too.
A quick note before I continue-it seems like something weird is happening with the spacing here. You shouldn't have a space between the word and punctuation. It also seems like you might need a quick primer on punctuation and dialogue, which conveniently enough, we have here at YWS: Punctuation within Dialogue
Minor quibble here-"crouched on his seat" doesn't sound like what a peddler would do. Crouching is something you do when you don't want to be seen, when you're trying to hide. A peddler wants to do precisely the opposite. He'd probably be standing, accosting random passers-by to hawk his wares.
The second line reads kind of odd. I think a more compelling rewording would be "It will make you a man people like". It could also be "many people alike", but I think that's just a rewrite of the first line.
I feel like you're trying to say that he was having trouble understanding, but the awkward wording isn't working for me. I might scrap this and move to the next line, saying "the boy's voice squeaked" to make it clear who's talking.
I love this. It's such a succinct way of saying how some people seem to be able to get everything by disguising who they really are.
This feels superfluous to me. I think if you're going to add something here, I'd rather see a transition of how he got to this point. What happened to make him lose the house (and I'm taking it, someone inside), and how did it connect to him not wearing a metaphorical mask?
Instead of repeating "street", I would just say "across the street/at a big house with a golden tree"
The word "wondered" indicates a question, while the line itself seems like a clear statement. I think there's two ways of writing this: "He wondered "Would it have been mine to keep if I'd just bought a mask or three?" or "He said "It would have been mine to keep if I'd just bought a mask or three." You could also use a word like "stated" or "declared" in the second version. Either way is valid, so it depends on what direction you want to go. Do you want him curious, questioning this assumption? Or do you want him cynical, believing this is the absolute truth.
Overall, I like the story here. Keep writing!
Thank you
I love this and the way you explore the idea of masks and hiding your true self to fit into society. I also like the way it rhymes- it gives it sort of an ancient feel, like it’s a story that’s been passed on since the middle ages. I especially like the line “A little lie and a little truth, / and life lets you through”. However, I did feel like the transition was a bit abrupt between the peddler selling the masks, and the man realizing he should have bought the mask. I would suggest putting an in between area, where the man explores the world, or at least take a few lines to explain that time has passed and what has happened to the man. Overall, though, this was a splendid poem and a very unique take on the way society expects certain things of us to be successful.
Thanks em
Hi Tanishka!
I really like what you have here. The message is a good one in my opinion and I love how you've created a fable-like story to hold it. Story-poems like this are always interesting to me and unfold the meaning nicely as the reader goes on, working through it at a nice pace. The story itself is well done I think, so I won't say much about that; I don't really have anything to suggest! There are a few things I think you could consider doing to sharpen the poetic side of this piece though, so I'll just run through those c:
1.
And to start off, the first thing has nothing to do with poetics at all lol. Just a few things with your punctuation mechanics. First, I know it seems kinda counter-intuitive and stupid, but punctuation always goes inside your quotation marks. So for example, the last line, "If I had just bough a mask or three." (the period goes inside), and the same thing with commas like in the 15th line: "With this one name and a few masks," the old man cried..." Also, there are a few places where you've got extra commas that it would be appropriate to take out. So that's just a couple small technical errors you could fix to avoid distracting you readers.
2.
I'm always impressed when I see somehow has pulled off a rhyming poem lol, because I lack the skill and patience for that. A lot of times, I think new poets especially will be tempted to "make rhymes," I call it, by throwing in a line or a word that doesn't really make a lot of sense or add anything to poem and is just kind of filler to keep the rhyme scheme. You don't seem to have really done that though, which is great! I don't feel like any of the lines are pointless.
There are just a couple places I think could benefit from being honed a little more, being made a little sharper if you will. The second line of the poem is one of those: "It will make you a person anew." The thing with this line is, I think, it's a little too "tell" instead of "show." It kind of just lays out flatly what the poem is about and over-explains the metaphor of the masks a little bit too much, not leaving enough for the reader to think about with it.
The other place is the three lines shortly after that:
Many masks, he carried in a heap.
White and blue, small and cute,
He carried masks of many a hue.
Now initially, the last line here did actually feel like filler to me; it essentially repeats the idea of the two lines before it in saying that there are lots of masks. But then I thought about it a little more, and I can see where it's a little different and does have a role in showing just how many *kinds* there really are. So here, I think you could focus your metaphor a little more, actually over the last two lines at least, if no all three.
This is just my idea that I'm using as a suggestion/example; you could do this however you want to and however you think works for your poem. I'm thinking you could do something like find some words that really touch at the essence of the feeling you want these masks to evoke and use those words as adjective for the mask, similar to how you did with "small and cute." I'm curious, why did you choose small and cute as a descriptor here? "Small and cute" evokes a particular feeling that, in context of the faintly ominous nature of the masks and peddler, morphs a little to be a tad ominous itself. If you could do something similar to that in the next line to evoke a stronger, more specific feeling, I think it could make your poem more solid, denser, more powerful, and more interesting. The words don't have to be emotions themselves, or even words you would normally think of using for masks. The masks could be "a confident red", for instance, or "humble blue," "stitched with a flourish of charm..." I hope that makes sense.
3.
Lastly, there's just a few places where the rhythm is a bit off. I'll try to go through and point out those places. (That being said, syllables and stress are not my forte, so maybe take the following with a grain of salt lol).
"His mother called from behind." Feels like this is missing a syllable.
"And life lets you through." Also feels short.
...I thought there were others, but now that I look at them again, I don't think there's anything wrong with them. Like I said, not my forte xD
Alright, sorry this is such a long review. I hope it's worth the read for you and that what I said makes sense. I'd really encourage you to work out a revision of this! It's a great start for a wonderful poem c:
-Stringbean
Thanks for the review Bean