A generation of change in Higher Education (HE) has seen a progressive shift to utilitarian values and the consequent questioning of the nature, purposes and roles of the university. This in turn leads to the question: what does it mean to be a university academic today? This suite of poems entitled 'Exploring Identity' arose in response to these questions. The poems form a cycle which begins with the nature of HE and academic practice, based on experience; then moves to more intimate reflections on academic identity. It concludes with responses to the changing purpose of HE as envisioned in the Government's White Paper (2003) and its implications for university academics and the university itself in a time of uncertainty. A coda, in the form of a final poem, offers one way forward.