Whitman’s poem “Song of Myself.” circles around self-identity and how everyone has an untranslatable self-hidden within them. Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about things relating to this poem which made me really enjoy this poem. Right now being at an awkward age of just stepping into adulthood, I feel like there’s so much I should do and yet so much I haven’t figured out. Everyone around me seems to be in a rush of becoming someone, which I feel like makes them forget who they are. In Whitman’s poem, “untranslatable self” is mentioned, self to him isn’t just physical your body or mind but also your soul. It includes everything that has made you the person you are right now and even your undiscovered self. That one’s self is above and beyond anything that can be translated. Everyone is different so you’re not a language that has been heard of or researched, One’s self is untranslatable showing how individually we are all unique and no one is exactly the same which is why we are untranslatable. One’s self is also untranslatable because as humans we are constantly changing and our sense of selves are only temporary. The poet himself hints throughout the poem that he, himself, is also untranslatable. Being in a free society, he, himself is not identified, discovered. In certain ways, I feel like he’s saying we all revolve in a circle of which makes up one or another through our individual experiences. The world seems so big yet it’s so small, everyone has an untranslatable self that they’re trying to identify in order to become steps closer to the self they ought to be. The self you seems to know right now isn’t exactly who you are or who you can be, so take it at your own pace and maintain your individuality.

• Shan Shan Chen