I Am Not My Past

[Poet-dude-ig]

Version One

You Cannot Tell Who You Are Until It’s Who You Were

You cannot tell who you are until it’s who you were.
I look in the reflective surface of my soul;
seeing time, emotion, evolution.
I am able to decipher my past,
Or so I say.

Sometimes, during great moments of clarity,
I can find myself and my meaning 15 minutes ago.
I get so incredibly close to understanding my present self—
Defining what makes me, me.

The dictionary lies on my shelf,
Discarded, forgotten, masked in a veil of dust;
It understands what's within and has oh, so many words to characterize itself.
Still, I have yet to find a word to define me.
Who am I?

I have convictions entombed in glaciation,
Yet springtime melts my frosted obstinacy.
I weave a cocoon of icy expressions,
shielding me from greater evils than Helios.
I am a moth and a butterfly in the same very moment.

Inside, I am the library of Alexandria,
But alike, I am susceptible to flames.
I rise from the ashes, not a phoenix,
But a burnt, misshapen bug bringing no more frigidity.
I am priceless, yet everything—has a price.

I could sell myself, piece by piece;
Make a million while losing everything that truly matters.
Please, I beg of you,
Reduce me to a number;
Each aspect of my being has been binary.
Anything extraordinary is simply an outlier,
For I am basic, and my purpose is dull.
I have been encoded for the exploitation of my own self.
The ones and zeros sum up my being—whole.

01001001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01100111 01101111 00100000 01100001 01100010 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01101100 01101001 01100110 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110111 01100001 01111001 00111011 00001010 01001001 01110100 00100000 01100110 01100101 01100101 01101100 01110011 00100000 01110011 01101111 00100000 01101101 01110101 01100011 01101000 00100000 01110011 01101001 01101101 01110000 01101100 01100101 01110010 00101110 00001010 01000101 01110110 01100101 01110010 01111001 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100011 01101000 01100001 01101110 01100111 01100101 00101100 00001010 01000010 01110101 01110100 00100000 01001001 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110010 01100101 01101101 01100001 01101001 01101110 11100010 10000000 10010100 00001010 01000001 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101001 01110011 01101111 01101110 01100101 01110010 00101110
Translation:
(I could go about my life this way;
It feels so much simpler.
Everything has to change,
But I shall remain—
A binary prisoner.)

That’s how the writer of this poem feels.
You can’t blame them for the way everything went down.
Although many may say the writer and I are the same,
the ones and zeroes do vary;
I am not the writer of this poem.

This poem represents who I was,
but it’s only a singular moment in time—
frozen down to a few words.
It’s been time since I’ve written this,
and if you were listening, I already told you:
You cannot tell who you are until it’s who you were.

(This version got a lot of feedback about long-windedness, over-explaining things, and using unnecessary figurative speech. I chose to turn the "I have convictions entombed in glaciation" and "I am the library of Alexandria" stanzas into a completely separate poem and just got rid of the second stanza.)

[carahmellow]

You Cannot Tell Who You Are Until It’s Who You Were

You cannot tell who you are until it’s who you were.
I look in the reflective surface of my soul;
seeing time, emotion, evolution.
I am able to decipher my past,
Or so I say.

Sometimes, during great moments of clarity,
I can find myself and my meaning 15 minutes ago.
I get so incredibly close to understanding my present self—
Defining what makes me, me. - I really like this stanza... I feel like I can relate a lot to this feeling

The dictionary lies on my shelf,
Discarded, forgotten, masked in a veil of dust;
It understands what's within and has oh, so many words to characterize itself.
Still, I have yet to find a word to define me.
Who am I?

I have convictions entombed in glaciation,
Yet springtime melts my frosted obstinacy.
I weave a cocoon of icy expressions,
shielding me from greater evils than Helios.
I am a moth and a butterfly in the same very moment. - This stanza feels a bit discombobulated with the ice/melting metaphors mixed with the cacoon/moth/butterfly metaphors. I like them both, but not sure they work well together.

Inside, I am the library of Alexandria,
But alike, I am susceptible to flames.
I rise from the ashes, not a phoenix,
But a burnt, misshapen bug bringing no more frigidity.
I am priceless, yet everything—has a price.

I could sell myself, piece by piece;
Make a million while losing everything that truly matters.
Please, I beg of you,
Reduce me to a number;
Each aspect of my being has been binary.
Anything extraordinary is simply an outlier,
For I am basic, and my purpose is dull.
I have been encoded for the exploitation of my own self.
The ones and zeros sum up my being—whole.

01001001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01100111 01101111 00100000 01100001 01100010 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01101100 01101001 01100110 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110111 01100001 01111001 00111011 00001010 01001001 01110100 00100000 01100110 01100101 01100101 01101100 01110011 00100000 01110011 01101111 00100000 01101101 01110101 01100011 01101000 00100000 01110011 01101001 01101101 01110000 01101100 01100101 01110010 00101110 00001010 01000101 01110110 01100101 01110010 01111001 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100011 01101000 01100001 01101110 01100111 01100101 00101100 00001010 01000010 01110101 01110100 00100000 01001001 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110010 01100101 01101101 01100001 01101001 01101110 11100010 10000000 10010100 00001010 01000001 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101001 01110011 01101111 01101110 01100101 01110010 00101110
Translation:
(I could go about my life this way;
It feels so much simpler.
Everything has to change,
But I shall remain—
A binary prisoner.) I really like these last few lines.... I think they are really impactful, and I almost feel like the poem could end here, but I understand why its doesn't which brings me to my next critique

That’s how the writer of this poem feels.
You can’t blame them for the way everything went down;
It’s just how the ice cracked. This line doesn't feel necessary.
Although many may say the writer and I are one,
The ones and zeroes do vary;
I am not the writer of this poem.
This poem represents who I was,
But it’s only a singular moment in time, frozen down to a few words.
It’s been time since I have written this,
And if you were listening, I already told you:
You cannot tell who you are until it’s who you were.
This whole stanza feels important to what the poem is trying to say, but I think it needs to be wittled down a little bit... just to make it impactful and precise. 

Great poem, I had a lot of fun reading it! I can relate to a lot of what it says. I just put in a few little things I noticed. of course take it or leave it! ,

[depressedmetalhead]

This poem is really impressive, I enjoyed it a lot. I've struggled with this same thing myself, and it is comforting to know there are others who don't fully understand themselves. I think what carahmellow said about the last stanza is true, and I think you could do this by getting rid of the first three lines of it because the reader can get the same idea without them. I would also add that "I have convictions entombed in glaciation, Yet springtime melts my frosted obstinacy. I weave a cocoon of icy expressions, shielding me from greater evils than Helios. I am a moth and a butterfly in the same very moment" is not necessary, since it is a bit hard to follow and you already touch on these ideas in other stanzas. Overall, great writing, and I enjoyed reading this very much!

[armadillosarecool]

I didn't find this to be a terribly effective poem, warning in advance. My apologies if my comments seem mean spirited, I'm just reacting to what I'm reading. None of this is a personal attack. 

You cannot tell who you are until it’s who you were. this feels clunky, could it benefit from a line break and/or streamlining?
I look in the reflective surface of my soul; this is fine
seeing time, emotion, evolution. 
I am able to decipher my past,
Or so I say. do you now? this feels wishy-washy. commit to your idea damnit.

Sometimes, during great moments of great clarity, 
I can find myself and my meaning 15 minutes ago. 
I get so incredibly close to understanding my present self—
Defining what makes me, me. 

The dictionary lies on my shelf,
Discarded, forgotten, masked in a veil of dust; the image says the same things that the adjectives do. redundancy is the enemy of poetry. kill it with fire.
It understands what's within and has oh, so many words to characterize itself.
Still, I have yet to find a word to define me. 
Who am I? Long-winded?

I have convictions entombed in glaciation, 
Yet springtime melts my frosted obstinacy.
I weave a cocoon of icy expressions,
shielding me from greater evils than Helios.
I am a moth and a butterfly in the same very moment. okay, this line is possibly the emptiest line in a sea of very thin lines. honestly just get rid of this stanza. it adds nothing except for random abstract imagery. so nothing.

Inside, I am the library of Alexandria,
But alike, I am susceptible to flames. This line and previous are nice. I like this imagery.
I rise from the ashes, not a phoenix,
But a burnt, misshapen bug bringing no more frigidity.  i mean okay. i'm just getting a lot of wallowing out of this. read some seneca or something
I am priceless, yet everything—has a price.

I could sell myself, piece by piece;
Make a million while losing everything that truly matters. this and previous line are fine
Please, I beg of you,
Reduce me to a number;
Each aspect of my being has been binary. has been?
Anything extraordinary is simply an outlier, this line makes it sound like the speaker is just depressed and every good thing about their life is ignored in favor of confirmation bias for a dull life.
For I am basic, and my purpose is dull.
I have been encoded for the exploitation of my own self. 
The ones and zeros sum up my being—whole.

01001001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01100111 01101111 00100000 01100001 01100010 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01101100 01101001 01100110 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110111 01100001 01111001 00111011 00001010 01001001 01110100 00100000 01100110 01100101 01100101 01101100 01110011 00100000 01110011 01101111 00100000 01101101 01110101 01100011 01101000 00100000 01110011 01101001 01101101 01110000 01101100 01100101 01110010 00101110 00001010 01000101 01110110 01100101 01110010 01111001 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101000 01100001 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01100011 01101000 01100001 01101110 01100111 01100101 00101100 00001010 01000010 01110101 01110100 00100000 01001001 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110010 01100101 01101101 01100001 01101001 01101110 11100010 10000000 10010100 00001010 01000001 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101001 01110011 01101111 01101110 01100101 01110010 00101110 this is pretty gimmicky not gonna lie. It feels forced and just wildly out of place.
Translation:
(I could go about my life this way;
It feels so much simpler.
Everything has to change, this line feels out of place
But I shall remain—
A binary prisoner.) 

That’s how the writer of this poem feels.
You can’t blame them for the way everything went down. why not? it sounds like the writer just needs to reevaluate their mindset. 
Although many may say the writer and I are the same,
the ones and zeroes do vary;
I am not the writer of this poem. oh my lord. please no.

This poem represents who I was, 
but it’s only a singular moment in time—
frozen down to a few words. not to be pedantic but frozen water expands
It’s been time since I’ve written this,
and if you were listening, I already told you:
You cannot tell who you are until it’s who you were. Well I don't think you vs you from 15 minutes ago is probably that drastic of a change but okay. Maybe if you're Paul fifteen minutes after he was done being Saul or something like that.

I kind of feel like this is a lot of words to say "hindsight's 20/20". My biggest single critique of this poem is that it's trying way too hard. No offense, we've all been there (God knows I have been and probably still am). I just got a lot of pseudo-profundity out of this and it made me annoyed. There are some good metaphors and some standout lines, but overall it just drags on and on and on hitting you over the head with flowery metaphors about the same thing. I know this critique is going to be unpopular, but honestly, if you want to get something out of this poem just cut. it. down. Edit it and edit it and then edit it some more until you've only got a couple of stanzas. 

best of luck,

aac

[RiverNotch]

When I think of free verse that deals chiefly with abstract ideas rather than with images or with stories, I think first of Eliot's "Burnt Norton" (though, *Carthago delenda est*, the man was a total piece of racist and sexist shit). Here are its first eight lines.

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.

Note how they evade long-windedness by using, as much as possible, the simplest of terms, or else by being, for the most part, fewer than 12 syllables in length. The longest words---eternally, unredeemable, abstraction, perpetual, possibility, speculation---either cannot be substituted with something simpler, or else (as in the case of "eternally" and "perpetual") to substitute them with simpler terms is to remove their references to a larger context, in this case (likewise with "unredeemable") to Christianity. Then there is also the use of other, subtler poetic devices, such as the constant repetition, to give them a sentimental quality beyond the ideas they peddle---for me, these lines seem meditative, even hypnotic---not to mention how their ideas are commonplace only in religious prose, so far as I know, and not in modern poetry.

The first two lines of this poem are the exact opposite of Eliot's work.

"You cannot tell who you are until it's who you were" is a common enough idea to be the subject of at least a few pop songs: right now, I can only think of all the songs that refer to Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi", even if "Oh, it always seems to go / that you don't know what you've got till it's gone" seems to refer exclusively to the other, rather than to the self, but I think the point still stands. Also, the line has a whopping six stresses scattered across thirteen syllables: it's almost an Alexandrine, to me the most ponderous kind of line in English prosody. The next line then peddles in an idea even more common, and because the idea is an image I can venture to say it's cliche: "the mirror of my soul", only it expands "mirror" not with a metaphor but through a pair of abstractions that even in prose would be seen as amateurish, and all contained in a line that is most definitely an Alexandrine.

The third line would be better, but the association between "time", "emotion", and "evolution" seems rather haphazard: aside from being another state of mind or category of sentiment, what exactly connects "emotion" with the other two words? Or else, is not "evolution" a mere tautology of time?

The fourth line, again, is a sort of tautology, considering what the first two lines say, but then the fifth line---most frustratingly!---seems to take it all back. "Or so I say". Of course it's what the speaker says, we haven't been given any indication so far that this is some kind of conversation, or that there is anything to what the speaker has so far said that provokes any sort of doubt.

This, I think, is the general pattern of this piece. The next stanza reads like, I dunno, a self-help book: I say "I dunno" because I don't read self-help books, but it's the sort of navel-gazing pseudointellectualism I expect of the genre. The third stanza finally gets to an image but, by God, it seems designed to taunt the careful reader: either the speaker really ought to open the book, as dictionaries contain the very building blocks of the poetic craft, or else the speaker lies, having already abused it through overuse. The fourth stanza especially: "I have convictions entombed in glaciation / Yet springtime melts my frosted obstinacy." What is that even supposed to mean?!

The most gimmicky part of this piece is the one stanza that I think merits preservation. Though I am someone who can't read binary, the translation actually works: it's pithy, it's idiomatic, and the fact that the sentiment, however common, is inseparable from its form---a binary prisoner, a poem written in binary, a poem published in a digital medium---is enough to get off, say, Marshall McLuhan.

Afterwards, the poem returns to a mode I find rather infuriating---of course whatever the poet wrote is what they feel, isn't that the bloody point?!---with which it sticks to the end. My advice for this poem specifically is to jettison everything but the bit in binary (or should I say the bits?), enclosing the translation in a spoiler. My advice overall....read "Burnt Norton".

[Poet-dude-ig]

I read all of your guy's feedback and altered the poem in a lot of different ways, I'm still a bit weary of the last two stanzas as I didn't change them from the original piece. Would the poem benefit more from just scratching out these two stanzas or should I keep them?

Version Three (Current)

I am Not My Past

I am not my past.
The sands of time can be easily vitrified.
The Ink upon paper
Knows of only one moment.

I find difficulty defining my present self.
I scroll through pages,
Research my experiences,
Only to find outdated definitions.

The dictionary lies on my shelf,
Although I handle it carefully.
The binding is worn,
And the pages are fraying.

A book with every meaning
Even defines itself.
Still, I lack the words
to define my own being.

I’ve been told I am priceless,
But is that really true?
My eyes can perceive
The price tag of pupils.
My ears can discern
My cost as a child.
My mind understands
To be deemed worthwhile,
I must lose myself,
My love and my style.

I could sell all these things,
Make millions losing myself–
Reduced to a number.
I’ve become a binary,
A collection of ones and zeroes,
encoded for the exploitation of my own self.

01001001 00100000 01100011 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01100111 01101111 00100000 01100001 01100010 01101111 01110101 01110100 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01101100 01101001 01100110 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110111 01100001 01111001 00111011 00001010 01001001 01110100 00100000 01100110 01100101 01100101 01101100 01110011 00100000 01110011 01101111 00100000 01101101 01110101 01100011 01101000 00100000 01110011 01101001 01101101 01110000 01101100 01100101 01110010 00101110 00001010 01010100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 01110011 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100011 01101000 01100001 01101110 01100111 01100101 00101100 00001010 01000010 01110101 01110100 00100000 01001001 00100000 01110011 01101000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110010 01100101 01101101 01100001 01101001 01101110 11100010 10000000 10010100 00001010 01000001 00100000 01100010 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110010 01111001 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101001 01110011 01101111 01101110 01100101 01110010 00101110
Translation:
(I could go about my life this way;
It feels so much simpler.
Things will change,
But I shall remain—
A binary prisoner.)

That’s how the writer of this poem feels.
You can’t blame them for the way everything went down.
Although many may say the writer and I are the same,
the ones and zeroes do vary;
I am not the writer of this poem.

This poem represents who I was,
but it’s only a singular moment in time—
melted down to a few words.
It’s been 46 lines since I’ve told you:
I am not my past.

[Mark A Becker]

I... Research my experiences,
Only to find outdated definitions.

The dictionary lies on my shelf,
Although I handle it carefully.
The binding is worn,
And the pages are fraying.

A book with every meaning
Even defines itself.
Still, I lack the words
to define my own being.

This version, while better, is still way too long: less can be more. The section above is all that really spoke to me.

The extensive repetition of 01010 is particularly annoying to me. Maybe others can extract more from it than I could, even with the translation. Perhaps try ASCII, but even that produces 65 32 73 77 for the simple sentence I AM.

Review the critiques given by aac & Notch, closely. They made many valuable points.