Seb Calderon

This poem entitled The Right Mask was written by Brian Patten in
2003. Employing a third person speaker, Patten establishes a tone
from the start to the beginning of the poem of an old fairy tale or
childrens story, presenting the reader with a metaphorical meeting
and dialogue between a poem and a Poet, who remains nameless.
The meeting with the personified poem is about the need to wear
makes, and ends with the Poet tearing at his own face and using the
poem as a mask. Patten uses the different masks as metaphors for
our personal identity, and describes the problems we face in finding
ourselves and ultimately discovering who we are.
In line 19 we are presented with a new stanza, showing a clear sign
of progression within the poem the personified poem has become
angry, as opposed to its previous demeanour. The poem is now
characterized by Patten as a child having a tantrum; using the
simile stamped its feet like a child and describing it as getting
impatient and screaming. After failing to convince the poet to
conform, it has revealed its childish and immature nature by having
a tantrum. Here the poem suggests to try on your own face. Here
the poem shows awareness of the Poets desire of being unique;
addressing directly to the Poet and using the anaphora of only you
could in lines 23-24, suggesting that the Poet has the ability to be
unique. Patten uses this emotive and angry language from the poem
to suggest the potential hardships and problems that a person may
face when striving to be unique: when the Poet rejects the clichd
ideas that the poem suggests in the first stanza, the poem becomes
angry and lashes out.
There is another dramatic transition in line 25, in which the Poet
becomes violent; Pattens use of violent imagery tore at his face til
it bled, this is the first use of such violent imagery. Patten suggests
through this imagery that the act of mask wearing has created a

Seb Calderon
separation between the Poets real identity, and his Poet persona.
He is no longer defined by a name or who he is only by what he
does. This violent act could also be interpreted as a punishment for
trying to be unique by society when asking if it is the right mask,
the poem responds with a simple yes, repeated twice through a
caesura in line 27. The caesura is used by Patten to emphasise this
final acknowledgement by the poem the poem believes that this is
the correct mask, and makes no attempt to stop the poet from
hurting himself.