Masks

[milo]

Hello. I have read this poem a few times. I believe it is the common theme of showing who you truly are underneath the mask hung around the frame of the purim festival. I wish you had done something completely different with the mask-true you meme, something to surprise the reader as this kind of reminds me of the billy joel song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E57pY8PnCPQ.

Also, I think the poem is a little too serious for rhyming couplets which, today, tend to come of campy, especially as they seem to lack the framework of meter.

Hi!

I wrote this for Purim 2013. More spiritual angst.

Twisting, contorting as we try to force it
and stuff ourselves in life's corset,
playing a thousand roles with nary a fuss
leading, supporting, but never us.

twisting, contorting, leading, supporting playing - the overabundance of participles weakens your language. You need strong nouns and verbs, especially in the beginning of a poem. You could switch these into active verbs and trim them a little -

We twist and contort as we try to force it -
to stuff our lives into a corset.

Which also brings up the problem of "it" - you have a pronoun that lacks an antecedent. You never reveal just what "it" is, as if it is some deep, dark secret.

No more maddening scheme could be devised,
on display, in the open, yet disguised,
as we slog along, not dance, not hike
being who we must, not who we'd like.

here, you are twisting your language a bit to achieve your rhymes and it ends up reading awkward. The sentence is rather long and it might help to split it. I don't get the relevance of not "hiking" - what is the importance of the "hike"

But comes Purim and the briefest chance
to offer the world, and ourselves, a fleeting glance
of who we are, in garb and mask.
Dare we now take up the task?

you can definitely trim "ourselves". "fleeting glance" is cliche. What is the "task" your narrator might dare to take up?

To hide? Without, perhaps.

This reads strange. Do you normally hide with perhaps?

But inside something deeper taps.
The mask offers yet a glimpse
of what routine routinely crimps.

what is the difference between "yet a glimpse" and a "glimpse"?

Under cloak of a Purimspiel
take a dare, be brave, be real!
Choose a mask but if you do,
know that the mask might unmask you.

Nu?

nb

I think the purim festival is fascination, I wrote my own purim poem for last year's NaPM. Unfortunately, you are letting your form and purpose drive the poem too much making an awkward and bloated read. Try stripping it down a little and possibly switching away from couplets or adding meter.

Hope this helps.

Good luck with it.

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just realized this was in novice so i probably commented more than I should have. Take what you can get from it and leave the rest.