'My Identity' poem

Pearl was born in Bristol, to proud, Dominican parents. She loves Creative Arts in general and enjoys writing poetry.

From 2012 for 6 years, she practiced multi-disciplinary Arts, in the form of drama, song, movement, and poetry. This helped to showcase other facets of herself, within the wider community.

She is part of the Urban Word Collective family and is published in vol 3 of their Lyrically Justified anthology.

From around 2018 she has been performing her poetry pieces at various venues throughout Bristol.

Pearl and her daughter, Amena, are participating in Bridging Histories together, and you can read Amena's poetry here.

She can be contacted on pharonight@hotmail.co.uk

I'm caught between so many worlds I said;

I am African, I'm Caribbean and I'm Bristol born and bred.

I'm caught between so many worlds I said;

I have all these identities swirling around in my head.

The African in me longs for my homeland.

I want to see her, to breathe her and sink my feet into her beaches of sand.

My Caribbean roots are also important to me:

It connects me to my parentage, to my immediate family.

Dominica is the place where I hail from.

It gives me a sense of belonging, when all else seems wrong.

And yet it's Bristol that my parents chose to come to,

As part of the Windrush generation, seeking pastures anew.

It's here that connects me to all that I know.

It's the place that taught me how to nurture and grow.

So I see my identity as being all of these three;

African, Caribbean, Bristolian, yes; that's me.