Poetry: Three Treasures by Hannah Lowe

Posted in Articles, Asian Diaspora, Autobiography, Media Archive, Poetry on 2012-09-24 02:39Z by Steven

Poetry: Three Treasures by Hannah Lowe

Freeword: a global meeting place for literature, argument and free thinking
2012-06-12

Hannah Lowe

A panelist at ‘2 Nations’, our recent event exploring national identity, Hannah Lowe is a poet of Chinese, Jamaican and English heritage. In this poem she performed for the audience that night, she explores how her background has influenced her sense of her own identity.

Three Treasures

Jamaica in the attic in a dark blue trunk,
sea-salt in the hinges. What must it look like
all that wide blue sea?

England downstairs in a rocking chair.
Nanna rocking with her playing cards,
cigs and toffee, tepid tea.

Jamaica frying chicken in the kitchen,
pig-snout in the stew-pot,
breakfast pan of saltfish, akee

China in the won-ton skin,
gold songbird on the brittle porcelain,
pink pagoda silk settee…

Read the entire poem here.

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