Vol.2 – Raising Hope as a Poet and Montessorian by Rhea Melina
Rhea Melina. Seattle based poet, Montessorian, birth worker, artist. Find her Instagram and the recent works at The Rising Phoenix Review.
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Lingxiao In the email, you told me you are by the same time a poet, a Montessori teacher and you know about plants. How would you introduce yourself?
Rhea That's a good question. I felt very challenged on social media, how we have to have the name and then the bio, you know, so I think, it's like – poet, Montessorian, artist, but it's changing. I was really into birth work and herbalism the last few years and took a break from performing poetry, took a break from putting poetry out for a little while. And then I wasn't advertising that part of my identity for a little while, even though I used to years ago. And then now, I'm kind of back at realizing – No, no – like, I could say that first as a poet. And I don't know why I kind of stepped back into owning that. But yeah, I'm also a Montessori teacher, and I'm a parent. And I'm a birth worker. I am an herbalist as well.
Lingxiao What can you tell me about Montessori, what is the basic setup in a classroom for children. I briefly attended Wardolf school in a short summer, and it felt very different from what the education system gave.
Rhea There's so much to it, but I'm getting pretty good at the elevator speech. Um, so it's a little over a hundred years old, and Maria Montessori was not a teacher really, she was a doctor and she was a scientist and she studied humans and how they learn. So she was interested in the studies that sort of later have become more neurological studies and studies of child development. She studied humans and what makes them tick and what makes them learn and how they develop. She designed a curriculum based off of what she observed in what she would call the universal child. So the things that all children have in common, regardless of class, socioeconomic, status, gender, all of these things. Then she kept track of what they are learning or moving towards learning, like the milestones now we call them at different ages. And so sort of came up with the concepts of they're yearning towards learning particular things at certain times, right? So at times that they were more apt to develop things as they're also more focused on gaining the information and the adaptation they need to make that development. And so those times are called sensitive periods. It's my job to connect them with concepts and materials and catch them during those sensitive periods to just help them continue to adapt and develop, um, to the utmost, to their environment. And we focus a lot on their independence.
There isn't so much the teacher as the orator that's sort of versus the group of students. I give most of my lessons one-on-one while the rest of the class is working independently with the materials that I have already shown them. And I get to adjust my lessons to what works best for each child. So I have to get to know everyone and kind of see what their styles are. And with some people, I use a lot of words, for some people I use very little words. Or for some people I'm using humor. There're a lot of different ways to do it. Um, that being said, the materials are very specific as far as what concepts we're working on them coming to an understanding of.
And then in each classroom, there is a three year age span. So we have the infant group, which is like until three years old. The group that I work with, is from two and a half until about six and a half years old. So we go through kindergarten and first grade for some children. Then there's the first grade that goes until, well, actually it's six to nine age and then nine to twelve and so on. Does that make sense?
Lingxiao How do you usually handle the dynamics between the children? For example, when there may be conflicts between children and what is the role of the teacher in the classroom?
Rhea Step back and observe and then see what tools they may need. So we give lessons on social graces and conflict resolution in the form of what we call grace and courtesy lessons. They're like small groups, and we do role-playing where we act out maybe de-escalation or nonviolent communication practices of how you could resolve a conflict. And if we observe that they need more help with that, instead of stopping them or fixing it for them in the moment – it's more a lesson for later. Like I try to let the children work things out and they're going to respond often like children do. And sometimes they're going to behave in ways that an adult would consider to be immature. But you zoom out, the hope is that within the time that they're in the program, they will get better at handling conflicts and handling disappointment and moving through their emotions and communicating and all of that.
Lingxiao Are there specific kinds of children who fit into this kind of system, or are there some kids just need other alternative ways of education?
Rhea I'm not sure. I mean, I think I believe in Montessori so much that I would like to say it's for everyone. But I think it's more about connecting with the particular teachers and us teachers working to make sure that each child is sort of like communicated with and treated with respect and accommodated for, because everybody's different. So whether someone has an official diagnosis or not, I still treat all of the children as unique beings. And sometimes the people who – you know, it's really interesting – sometimes people will come to my class and observe and they'll really like a certain child, and I'm like, yes, they're wonderful. But my response is always that they all have things to work on. We all do, you know, there isn't really a child that's easier or more challenging than another. Just your goal is to help each one, do better.
Lingxiao Yeah, how many kids are in your class and do you have exams?
Rhea We have 26 children and twice a year we'll do – kind of okey – we'll do progress reports and we're in communication with the parents throughout the year and I feel like I've been a really good situation now because other schools where I've worked is definitely been harder to be myself, harder to be a poet and an activist and care about things as deeply as I do and here in this school I finally feel like I'm working for a place where I can be human and I'm supported as a parent. Unfortunately Montessori in our country has become something that is a privilege and it's something that I wouldn't be able to afford if they weren't really working with me. If I wasn't working in the school I wouldn't be able to pay for it. So that's definitely something I would like to change but that is a structural change, a huge societal shift that needs to be made about education in general, not just Montessori right?
Lingxiao And what's the role as a poet between the other role as an educator? Which one comes first and what is the dynamic between them?
Rhea Oh, that's interesting. Definitely I didn't think I would be an educator when I was younger. I was, when I was growing up, I was very much individual art and poetry and, just was like, I'm an artist and did not think I would become an educator. At some point, that in my early twenties, I realized that hanging out with children was a really good source of therapy and hope and joy and really helped me feel like I was able to be myself and show good sides of myself. Other communities that I was existing in was just a lot of dysfunction. And I would say I wasn't kind to myself. I wasn't healthy. And then when I was around children, I started realizing that I didn't have an excuse not to be, I'm not going to be that person that is taking care of children and, uh, doing drugs at the same time or lying or not taking good care of myself. I want to set a good example that I'm eating well and drinking a lot of water and telling the truth and, and being kind. And so I realized that working with children helped me be a better human. And then I just remained a poet, I guess. I still make art too, but you know, I think I also got very jaded selling my art and realized that wasn't going to be sustainable for, and not only financially, but just for my, my wellbeing and for my heart to art, or enough to make money to the extent that I would have to, to be able to pay all my bills or raise a family.
Lingxiao Does it also rise at the time you became a mother, that drew your attention from art to more of like parenting?
Rhea Yeah, I mean, I think it does. I think it has changed shape of what that looks like. Before I was pregnant, for example, I was playing music out a lot and I was in a band and I was just like, playing in a punk band and just like getting drunk and yelling and having a good time. Then when I tried to go to band practice when I was pregnant, I'm sober, of course, when I'm pregnant, and I wasn't into it anymore. I was tired and I wasn't – the jokes aren't funny, you know, I was just like, come on, guys, can we just play the song? That I gotta go to sleep.
Lingxiao How did you start writing? Did you start it as a hobby since young, or how is the way it felt important to you?
Rhea That's a really good question. I think that I was lucky to have the writers in my family. My dad was a writer. He wrote some poems, but mostly novels. And my mom enjoyed writing, although I didn't read what she was writing. And I knew my brother wrote a lot. He was three years older than me. So he was writing long stories when I was a kid and saying he was writing novels, but they were published more like short stories. And he was a kid pretending he was writing novels. I just remember starting to write poems as soon as I could write. I mean, I think I was probably six or seven and I was really enjoying rhyming and writing down descriptions of things. Or I would take photographs and then write a few lines, maybe like just one stanza on the back of the photograph. Like when we would get them back from development. I remember always enjoying it since I could write. I think I started reading when I was five and I think I was writing poems and sharing them with my family when I was six or seven.
Lingxiao Are there impactful characters among them – and I have to complain about one thing is – when I look at the English poets maybe 90% of them are white but I also attend poetry nights and find that there are many also other good poets alive, just not many of them are published. How do you feel about it?
Rhea Haha, it's tricky to say how I feel about it because I think that there's a level of knowing that I'm not always comfortable with the setting, knowing that, I've always, I always feel like a minority. And I think part of that comes from being mixed race too, because I feel a little strange wherever I am. So in a white space, I feel like a minority and in a black space, I feel different, right? I think that growing up, I was lucky to having my mom be white and native American. White and indigenous. And my dad is a black French Creole. And since he was very interested in art and literature, he exposed me to a lot of different musicians and poets and, and writers at an early age.
Rhea So even though society and media maybe was giving me, um, the white normative voice, I wasn't getting that at home. So, uh, that I think helped me so much to be comfortable with coming up with my own style or being comfortable with my voice, not necessarily fitting one norm. I'm not sure if I answered your question.
Lingxiao Yeah, I mean, I don't expect any answers. I just don't even prepare much questions here.
Rhea Yeah, but it's interesting to think about because I do think that it comes into it because I feel like I have to sometimes, not all the time, but often if I'm given the microphone for a long enough amount of time and you've seen me perform so you know a little bit about this, I feel like I have to sort of talk enough about my identity so people understand who they're listening to so that they don't accidentally judge me as this or that so that they can kind of see the big picture so I always hope to like make my voice clear enough or somehow in what I'm saying make it clear that they can throw away maybe some of whatever those judgments are if they have them but that's really challenging to, that's a big job to take on, right?
You know, I think there's a level of acceptance that we have sometimes of just, okay yeah like this you know, I'm often in white spaces and it's that way with other work I do too, right? And that we're often in a white patriarchal space but lately in Seattle I've been able to be welcomed in a lot of other spaces too and it's good.
Lingxiao So you moved to Seattle, you're not, where I didn't move from?
Rhea Yeah, I've been off and on here for a very long time. But when I was, let's see, so I grew up in Shelton. So there might be some pieces of that in the book, which Shelton is in Mason County, it's about an hour and a half drive south from Seattle.
So it's close to Olympia. It's a lot in town. When I was a kid, my dad was the only black guy in town for a little while. And then I remember when another black or mixed black family came to town, it was like a big deal for us. But it was always a little bit different because the guy in that family, he was really nice. He played drums at his kid's soccer games and things. He was from Africa, right?
Lingxiao You mentioned that last time on the poetry night, I remember that story.
Rhea Yeah, yeah. So I've been thinking about this a lot lately because I almost feel like there should be a different word. Like if I were to say, oh, my dad was the only black guy in town, it would be almost equal to what was real, but that wasn't what was real.
There was another black guy in town. It was just different because he didn't have ancestors that were slaves. And it was different because he brought knowledge of his African culture that he was just so warm and welcoming, sharing with others.
And we had something else. And what we had was great. It was beautiful, but it was different. So yeah, I grew up in a place where we were the victim of a lot of hate crimes and a lot of teasing and bullying and growing up.
So it's really, it's cool to be in a place where there's just less of that. And I know that it's kind of this little bubble, but I choose to be here because I feel more welcome in spaces.
Lingxiao Yeah, it's interesting because I hear you say there should be two words for different people, even though they are both black, because it's same for me, because in Chinese language, there are two words for the Chinese people and the language, but you can't differentiate that in English. There should be a broader term for culturally being Chinese than the specific one.
Rhea But yeah, it is very limiting, if designed to be that way. Yeah, I think Seattle is sort of a lot of people will say that it's like not very welcoming. And yeah, like that there's at all trees that people are not warm here and welcoming.
But I kind of like how it is here, because I think that people have pretty good boundaries. And I still think that there are a lot of people who are interested in community. And you just have to kind of look for them, you have to go and look for stuff, you know, it doesn't just like, wake you up in the morning, like some places, right?
You have to really look for things, but they're they are here. And I think it's different than it was before the pandemic, too. But maybe I'm just optimistic. I, I feel like before the pandemic, we were, at least in my social circles, just sort of taking a lot of things for granted, like, oh, everyone's an artist, everyone makes music. And then it was kind of taken away from us for a little while to be able to perform and, and all of that and share it. And so now I feel like we're more like, charged for it, you know, we're kind of doing it with gratitude in a way. But maybe not everyone, maybe just the people in my circle.
Lingxiao So next question is kind of also my personal curiosity as someone who come outside from this country. It's related to a bigger context, but I really want to bring up some questions around it. So I feel in the past few years, there are more things happening like socially. Let's say there's a social movement happens and you agree with 80% of it, but you disagree with the rest 20%. What would you be your action to this situation?
Rhea It's so challenging. I mean, I feel that way right now, a little bit about what's coming up ahead with presidential election, right? So I would really like to vote for Cornel West and I believe that he's the best option because I agree with him and I've been following him a very long time.
There are people in my life who are going to be so mad at me when they find out that I'm working for his campaign because they believe that I'm throwing the vote away and that Trump is more likely to become president if we vote for anyone except for Biden, but I don't want to vote for someone who's committing war crimes, regardless of what political party they're in.
And I don't want to vote for Zionist who's facilitating genocide. I would like to vote for someone who has people of color in mind because I believe that we could use our privilege to help perhaps people involved in other situations like what's happening in the Congo and Sudan.
But it's unpopular that I have this desire to vote with my conscience. I guess what I'm saying is I believe mostly, yes, absolutely. We do not want Donald Trump to be our president again. I believe that we should vote our conscience and so I'm going to try to help elect someone that I think would be the best choice.
I really don't want people to only focus on the presidential election. It wouldn't feel like we were just throwing our votes away if we were interested in campaigning months ago, years ago, if we would have been thinking about this, if people didn't hold so much importance to the presidential election and cared more about local elections and local activism, we wouldn't even be in this fucking position, you know?
So that's the first thing that came to mind when you're, when you mentioned that, it's like, I feel that there's this sort of, everyone should just do what they think is the sort of strategic move instead of what they really believe 100% is right. And that just sort of breaks my heart, you know? But we can't just do what we feel is right. We have to make some strategic move.
Lingxiao What is the cause that, every four years, you can only choose one from the two? I think that happens most of the time. Some people tell me it's the lobby system.
Rhea I mean, basically, like, there's all these lobbyists and money going towards the campaigns. They've created the system so that, you know, you're choosing between usually just the two parties. Right. But I feel like it's really just a matter of enough people sort of coming to conclusion that they don't want to support that anymore.
You know, it's this there's been this idea that that that was democracy, quote unquote, for so long. And so many people believed it that it became less and less like democracy as it as it gained more power.
Right. Where I think if people were to sort of take that back and say, wait, what does that even mean? Like, do we even want that? And I and I really do see and maybe I'm in a bubble, you know, maybe my social media shows me what I want to see.
And so I believe it's more true than it is or bigger than it is. But I really think that a lot of people in this country are on open to something different and really unhappy. And you think about how many people are like undecided voters.
Why can't they choose an independent candidate instead of Democrat or Republican? You know, I mean, I think so many people that used to be Green Party and used to be what they would consider to be Democrat now are kind of undecided.
Lingxiao I'll let you take a break from these topics. Anyway, so you've just been to a TV show, right? I think half a month ago, what questions did you talk there?
Rhea Oh, they didn't ask me questions. It was so interesting. I thought I was going to be interviewed by BESA because it was back to BESA TV, but actually she wasn't even there. And that's fine. She's, I'm sure, a busy lady. They basically invited us into the studio and myself and a few other poets and they showed us where the cameras were. And that was a little bit different because I'm used to performing in front of a crowd or just talking to one person like this, I can do.
But you know, I stood on this platform with the backdrop behind me and there's three or four cameras. And then I look at the screen and in front of me to kind of make sure that I still was holding my posture and standing in the middle or whatever. And then I can see on the screen the different camera angles of me. So that's a little unnerving, but it was, it was cool. It felt very fancy. It's fun, but they just said to introduce yourself and I'll say a little about the poem and and read a poem and that was it.
Lingxiao Do you want to read one today?
Rhea Yeah. Sure. Let me decide what I should read. I'm looking at my phone, because some things are in there. Just for the sake of spontaneity, I can just read something I wrote today. Okay. Okay.
It was profound when Chief Sealth said, you will one day realize you cannot eat money. But now I see that if you would. And you would love how it would keep you skinny and how it would taste like wasted time and nameless fingertips. And you would wash it down with affirmations that have exact rhyme and resemble slogans from ad campaigns that during childhood went to your head and slithered inside your core, taking post of your soul as your body carries out its wishes to this day.
But I haven't given up all hope that you could turn this around. I too have changes to make, not just to skip the plastic straw or to shop small, but perhaps I should not shop at all. Perhaps I should give up everything I've worked for.
What if to win the fight, we must surrender to change, change bigger than the battle at hand. My feet are tired, but I can't stand to see something different because this dichotomy is exhausting. And the animal in me is bored with this rat race mask, the survival while some are mining barefoot so I can show you this poem in real time.
Hashtag fuck my life. No, really, I didn't ask for this, but who did? And yet I feel strangely obligated to try and fix this broken existence. It's going to take more than resistance to make the rivers run backwards.
We're going to have to swim upstream while singing and carrying our children above water with all the numbers memorized and our passports in our hair. Talk about 100, it's going to take it all to reverse the damage that's been done, to unlearn the lie that nourishment comes from monetary gain, that happiness blooms from flowers that have been farmed, plucked and sold.
But I do believe we can again find joy in sharing wealth and taking care, in playing in fields where wildflowers grow and trusting them to reseed.
Lingxiao I think you also wrote something in your poem to answer this question, but I guess my question still comes up as, do you write “happy” poetry? And why most of the time you don't?
Rhea Good question. Oh man, I almost feel like I want to like scrap my answers to earlier, uh, questions because I'm finally warming up. And all I can do is regret like, mentioning Trump at all. Like, I'm doing it again. I just regret that. I just, I wish we could live in a world where we don't have to talk about that ever again. But yes, I, I don't write happy poems very much. Um, sometimes I write soulful poems. Sometimes I write, um, what's the word, sensual poems, but I don't think I would call them happy.
I write to process. Um, and I write so that I can sleep at night. Otherwise the thoughts keep me awake. And if I don't write them down and they keep me up all night anyway, I wake up like, what the fuck did I just do? Why did I, like, it's the worst when you can't get an idea down and it's the worst when it's bothering you. Um, and sometimes things happen that bother me. So I find that they don't sort of eat at me for as long if I start telling the story, right?
If I start writing it down and sometimes it's just making sense of it to myself. So it only kind of feels like a poem. If I feel like I'm really saying something that's like true, you know? And I guess that's, that's sort of, you asked me earlier why, um, it felt important to me. And I think it felt important because I realized that I could really feel like I was saying something true. And I think when I was a kid, I was very shy. I didn't talk very much, but I felt like I could communicate if I wrote things down. I'm still kind of like that. You see, I can be a little nervous answering questions, but when I have a moment to just write it down, it's like there's, there's clarity and some kind of strength there, you know?
Lingxiao What made you the change being more expressive, does that help me??
Rhea Oh, that's interesting. Well, first, really bad things have to happen to you. I'm just kidding. No, I don't want to pretend to know your struggles. I actually just remember when I was maybe 18, slam poetry was popular. And I realized that that was the place that I could talk about these things that other settings people didn't want to hear about. You know, people didn't believe me when I talked about being abused or being sexually assaulted, or it was like, Oh, we already heard that story.
You know, make it would make people uncomfortable in other settings. It's not exactly like something you talk about at a party. But then on stage, it was like, I got more points. If I talked about these things that actually were very hard, and I don't write for points anymore.
But it drew it out of me because I realized that was valuable to some people. Right. And I think I started realizing that I'm not really talking to people who things don't resonate with, and that's okay.
There's the same kind of when I make a painting, I noticed that people will say that something I painted made them not feel well. I got a really great rejection letter recently from a literary magazine that said that he, although he enjoyed the particular piece more than he had enjoyed my previous submissions, he wished to not publish it because he was afraid it would leave the readers on a sad note.
And I found that interesting. I felt like I was like, Oh, you get it. Okay, like, it's like mission accomplished, like, it is sad, like this is sad stuff, you know, and so some people don't like to be reminded or be told that things are hard and that's okay, they can read other poetry.
That's fine. There is poetry out there for people who don't want to be told, you know, sad truths. But I also think that in my writing, there's always a lot of hope. And I think that it's more about connecting with people who also maybe have had similar struggles.
But if anything, if I can show them that there's hope, and that there's more than that, I think it means something. And I also like to believe that it can raise awareness to people who maybe aren't familiar with those struggles, you know, it's, I think I had, I've had this kind of shtick that I go back and forth with.
But, you know, I don't always write about fucked up things. I don't, sorry for swearing. I don't always write about trauma. I like to also write about, you know, what the candle looked like at midnight or whatever, something romantic that I observed or felt.
But most of the time, it's for it's selfish when I first start writing, so that I can feel better about something. And then I usually turn it into something that I think might be useful to others.
Lingxiao So do you think there are different types of poets and there are different purposes?
Rhea Yeah, it's interesting because my father -in -law is in town right now from New Jersey. He knows I'm a poet. He said he doesn't really like poetry and he's picked up a few books on the coffee table to try to give it a chance and it's kind of funny the things he's said about a lot of the stuff because his way that he's analyzed some of it is very different perspective than I would have had.
And he'll say, I don't know if I really like this and I keep saying it's okay. Most people really don't like poetry. That's really okay. That's okay. And then I realized, you know what though? I need to find poetry that he would like and that can be my goal is what would he like?
He thinks it's not for him but he doesn't know that there is something out there. And so I found a, we had a really good dinner and he was complimenting my cooking and I was like, oh okay. If he was like really into the food, he would like this poem about food by an author, D. Coffin. So I showed it to him and he was like, I think I like poetry.
I heard someone recently say that they didn't think that it was the poet's job to be political. And I found that really interesting because, I mean, I think that's one of those very privileged things to say, because I think if you're a poet who feels like you don't have to be political, it's probably because you're okay regardless of some things that are happening, quote unquote, politically.
And I think that many poets, many marginalized poets feel like it absolutely cannot be separated from their work, that you take someone like Saul Williams, and I can't believe that people are telling him to just shut up and make poems because he's never made poems that are not about the big bad things that have happened or are happening. He's always been doing this. So it's very strange when late in someone's career, they're being told shut up and just make the pretty poems. They never really just made the pretty poems. Other people did that. Mary Oliver does that. That's great.
Lingxiao Hmm, speaking of that, speaking of being political, what do you believe makes people move to poetry instead of just jumping to be a journalist or something that is maybe closer to what's happening?
Rhea I mean, there's so many reasons probably why each person takes a particular path. Myself, I was interested in journalism, for example. I was really interested in doing music journalism when I was in college.
I started writing for zines and putting out my own poetry and started to feel like I didn't need to go to school for writing anymore. And I didn't have to do that. It was I could just be a poet. I don't have to, you know, there are people who take the academic route and are poets.
But I think that there are plenty more poets who don't take the academic route. Then there are journalists. Journalists often take the more academic route in order to be respected and be given positions.
Does that make sense? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think, too, like there's something about when you're inspired to write, it's based on life, based on what you've gone through. If I had just been writing poetry and not worked other jobs and not had other interests and struggles and travels and things, what would I even write about? I feel like sometimes you have to just have experiences, otherwise you have no fuel. You know, so that's part of it, too.
Lingxiao I guess I'd call that a closing?
Rhea Thank you.
Lingxiao Thank you!
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