Skip to main content

Select your location

Pass The Mic logo, black background white and purple text

Pass the Mic

 On Tuesday, we #PasstheMic to those with enriching perspectives to share their views and goals. Today, Tash Beecher - Associate Creative Director at Kin + Carta Pollen shares her lived experiences and learnings with us.

When I was asked to take part in pass the mic, I initially thought I’d talk about my experience moving through the world as a black, gay woman. I thought I’d speak on how it’s been for me in the last thirty-odd years, going from being a child growing up in a rural village in Somerset and moving to Nottingham for university, becoming an adult. Yeah, I thought, obviously, I’ll chat about the enormity of the last 6 months for people like me in the marginalised communities I belong to. But actually, I’ve talked about this all quite extensively recently. Instead, I thought I’d share one of the methods I use to help myself heal; writing.

I don’t often get to write poetry. Sure, I write scripts and creative copy. But poetry is something I used to create and perform much more in my youth than I do now. I’m an associate creative director at Pollen Health – a creative leader – which is rare for someone like me, or, people like us, I should say (my creative partner, Gus, has also done a Pass the Mic). It also means there’s less time in my day for personal poetry. So I’d like to share with you some very personal rhyming words, that I hope will resonate positively. Experience them as you wish, on the understanding that they say everything I want to say right now.

Belonging

Belonging is a journey at the core of all my wants
A destination of familiarity and newness all at once
A place where I can be myself in future and in past
Mind and heart open, strong and fragile, heavy glass
So handle with care, if you care, and even if you don’t
Know that in me there’s tenacity, know that I bloody won’t
Be held down by any systems set up to see me fail
The feeling of achievement is a golden, holy grail
So I take my daily wins and tell the narratives I choose
I’ll give them such wild rhythm that they can’t discard my blues.
We’re smashing white fragility, with the fragments we’ll create
Something stronger, bricks of unity, together we innovate
Being comfy with discomfort takes courage, being strong…
But only when we can all sparkle will every one of us belong. 

Discover what inclusion and diversity mean at Kin + Carta

Learn more