Your Happy Hour - The Stack Series ~ "The Journey: Poetry and Paintings of Dr. Paulette” ft. Paulette Meikle

Episode Date: October 4, 2026

Welcome to The Stack Series! ✨The Stack Series features new books and emerging authors sharing their stories, inspirations, and journeys with us. In this special episode, we celebrate the launch of a new book into the world written by author Dr. Paulette Meikle shares her inspiring journey of creating a poetic and artistic reflection of her life, nature, and social justice. Discover how her book emerged from deep introspection and cultural roots, offering insights into authenticity, vulnerability, and the power of art.Check out more about the book, read a sample here.🎧 Stay tuned for stories that inspire, uplift, and spark your abundant life!The Stack Series is produced by swartkat.co - captured via riverside.fm & shared via rss.com.

back with another episode on the Fields podcast and this is part of the stack series which is a series that honors authors books and we just celebrate the happy times of reading and creating out in the world which is so wonderful and I'm so delighted today to have a guest joining me who this book is actually really inspiring me a lot of my own journey so I'm very excited to talk about that but such a big, big welcome to you, Dr. Poliet, and I hope I'm saying this in the right way. You can help me with your beautiful accent, which you can also tell us a little bit more about where that comes from. Such a big welcome to the field space, the stack series, and to this episode for us to talk more about your book called The Journey, Poetry and Paintings of Dr.

Paulette. So I'm really happy that we can uncover a little bit more about. where this book came from for you. Well, thank you so very much, Nicole, and you may call me Paulette. It's fine. My last name is Miko. I'm originally from Jamaica, but I've been living in the U.S. for 26 years now, working in higher education. And so much of my work is inspired by my cross-cultural tracks. And more importantly, my memory, my childhood memory, just living in nature and being in nature

in connecting with family and certainly the more serious part of the work, identity and justice, does meld in some of my sociological focus areas that I have been able to work in as a professor and as an administrator. So I'm delighted to be here. Thank you for having me. Of course. It's so wonderful to have you. And I find it really fascinating that you've been able to kind of merge all these worlds. and these topics. And for those who are listening, I want to take you on a very quick little journey of the sections of the book, which are section one, earth unraveled, section two, the love, section three family, section four, identity and justice, and section five abstractions, which to me is to such a beautiful flow. I'm quite curious, Pollitt, like, how did this book find you?

where did you, did you wake up one day and you were like, now I'm writing and now I'm painting. That is a wonderful question, Nicole. Thank you so much. So the book found me slowly and over time. It's a kind of situation for many years. I've been writing in fragments, you know, journaling, perhaps, just being reflective. And I think during a season of what really motivated. me in this last couple of years to be really highly focused on my writings and what they mean. Because after COVID, I went into a season of reflection like many of my friends and thinking about what's essence of life and asking those pertinent existential questions. Why are we here?

What's my purpose? Where am I from? And how do I relate to the world to me? And so these, this has been many years of reflection, the poems and the sketches that I have presented in the book. A part of my memories, I would say go as far as to say prayers, part of my prayer. They lived inside of me for a long time. And as quiet companions, being really quite internal in the last chapter of the book, you'll see it's about the inner life, the inner dialogue that have had much interesting.

but certainly the book found me, the book found me, I think. Throughout my life, it's just been, when you read those works and you see those paintings, really is a reflection of the entire trajectory of my life. But in the last couple of years, with deep introspection and a real focus on gathering all those pieces of work together, almost, you know, as the earth evolves and you're thinking about those cycles in the earth, you're thinking about your own personal cycles, your spiritual life. My own history, I think, was very influential in, you know, talking about the communion I had with my childhood, my childhood environment, my parents,

my siblings. But more importantly, the posture of majesty of the earth that we live in, I can't even find words. I feel certainly vulnerable in writing this work. How do I describe the majesty of the ocean, the magnificence of the mountains, you know? It really challenged me. But then in that challenge, I said, that's exactly why you need to write about your parents' love, about nature, about the siblings, about strengths, about more and more importantly, I think even as I wrote, as I wrote, about my family, it's ancestral dignity, just reading about the history of how my family came about who they are and how they immersed themselves in culture, how they were part of the economic

structures, the plantation economy that they were part of. The ancestral dignity was so important for me in Wyden. So it's a place of communion. It's a place of sacred listening. And finally, I think it would be remiss with me if I not mention that growing up in Jamaica, being in what's the equivalent of middle school or primary school system and learning poetry. And Claude McKay is a Jamaican, American poet. And he stands out to me because I remember reciting his poem, The Spanish Needle. And in that poem, he was just describing his intimate relationship with nature. But beyond that poem, he also was a spokesperson through his written words of,

the socially and political issues that were important and relevant. So I guess I got my sense of justice and writing for, justice and writing for women in leadership, writing about women who are so resilient and so strong and so important in our culture. And that influenced, in retrospect, the way that I think. And finally, in response to this question, Nicole. When I was at Mississippi State University where I taught, after a lecture, there's a student who walked right up to me and handed me a piece of paper. And when I got back to my office,

I noticed that it was a poem called A Phenomenal Women by Maya Angelou. Well, first, I was raised by this amazing poem and the fact that this young lady thought of me in that way to share that point with me. And so I doveed into your work. So I have had some influences. I want to say, what a journey. But now I feel like that's already the words that are in used, you know. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. A journey. I'm such a fan of poetry, everyone who listens to the podcast, often and who follows me will know that. And I feel like poetry, poetic living is such a big part of who we are. It gives us a voice. You know, I often look at comedians. stand-up comedians and I feel like they have a way of communicating difficult things too,

you know, through art. Art has a way, art and creation that is not necessarily within the societal corporate structures that we find ourselves in, that we allow ourselves to feel and just rawfully put on paper, you know, on painting. And I really love that your book is such a compilation because that's something that I don't see often where someone is is kind of willing to put these things together and it does make the writing or the publishing process a bit harder I can imagine and I'm sure it's it's been a journey in that like what has that been like for you in terms of the whole pulling together the work

compiling the book and yes you're correct about it that merge in the visual and the creative writing for the publisher, but they were again. Parker publishers were very, very supportive. There's a lot of back and forth in terms of how we do this presentation. But the compilation was, it was so, I think, authentic for me and honest. I kept telling my colleagues at the publishers that I just want my work to be honest and authentic and nothing contrived about it, particularly because that's not necessarily, I'm not a creative writer in a choice sense. Most of my writings have been academic and related to the work that I do as an academic so with that understanding set up front, it was easy for me to work with them.

It was definitely challenging in moments because putting together the work and in a way that would communicate a sense of revelation and renewal to the readers, a sense of connection with the readers, and how they might feel a sense that as a human being, we are part of this connection between nature and humanity. And they understood my premise and worked with me. It's amazing. And I want to ask you about that, like,

what is it that you? want your reader to feel and experience through your book because there's obviously an experience for you when you're creating it, you know, and I'm sure that's also very healing and we'll get to that. But what do you want other people to feel and kind of walk away with? Wonderful questions. Well, first, I want them to feel my heart and soul, my sincerity, in the way that I've sequenced the painting and curated the written word. I want them to be able to authentically connect with the words of words. written to bring them back to their own experience as they climbed mountains, every river that

they crossed, every sense of injustice that they witnessed, and stimulated some kind of anguish inside of them. I want them to, through my words, see every act of love that they received in life, like I did, to be meaningful as part of my own substance, as part of their own substance, connecting with the love of parents, siblings, teachers, and all those who have surrounded them in a way that help them to grow. But as you can see in the section on love, love is very diverse. It's not just romantic love or parental love. It's love for animals. There is one whimsical poem in there about my shaggilly waggly friend who is really a dialogue between an owner and his pet and how wonderful that is and how meaningful.

And in that poem, the owner is driven to tears to see the loyalty and the kindness of his pet, his shaggily waggily friend. And then, you know, I try to, there's an old man who is talking about his neighbor and her scones. And literally, he's in an apartment building where you can hear the neighbor's alarm every morning. And that would be his alarm time to wake up to go down to the coffee shop. But that morning, you did not hear the alarm go up.

And, you know, it's a sense that these are people living their lives, connecting with neighbors, to different kinds of love, do different kinds of ways to view love. And there's also unrecquited love. You know, how many times have we been exposed to a situation where you are so intensely attracted or to an experience that involve other people, but they're not interested in in your angle of the whole love equation. And so love is very diverse, the love for God, a love for nature.

And I hope you can connect with, through my words, that will bring meaning and revolution to how they live their lives. And above all, a gratitude for life itself. That's beautiful. I, well, when I was reading through your book,

I felt that, you know, I felt that, it took me a little bit deeper into a space of myself of love and joy and gratitude. And I believe because your energy is so woven into that, you know, we feel that through the pages, we feel that through the art. And I am curious, how did you decide on the themes? Did you kind of paint and write and then collectively you found these themes through what you were doing? Or did you decide on themes and then they kind of emerged the right?

emerging emerge from that. That's a beautiful question and this is how it evolved for me. So in my jotting down notes and writing poetry and painting my artwork, I was just, I had no themes. I just did what I felt inside of me, the revelations I had, the beauty I saw, what I felt I needed to get out of my system emotionally. So with that emotional intensity inside and the need to just speak on different issues, so as I experienced them, like walking in the woods or during the social upheavals of 2020 or just witness and gender inequality or racial inequality and jotting down those notes over time, so the authentic part of the book is that I did not come up with a a set of topics I wanted to write on. Later really, they came out of a space and place of authenticity

within me, the things that were important. And so I just wrote and wrote and wrote all these different poetry. And then later on, I realized that there were themes emerging and then they began to place them in different segments. And particularly for the timeline of compiling the book, then it became extremely important to organize in a way that would be meaningful. for me as a writer and publishers and for my readers. And I sat down and said, what is this speaking about, really, and what's irrelevant?

And does it make sense? And the level of connection that it might have to the reader. And then I began putting them in different segments. So really, Nicole, the sections emerged organically and true to the nature of what my areas of focus and concerns for societal oneness and for family and for love and for appreciation for nature, they just came through me organically and then they were later categorized. I love that.

I love that you could share your heart in that way because I think that sometimes we can work within kind of prompts and things like that. A lot of people might song write like that or whatever it might be. but I do believe that the sort of, let me say, the channeling of energy that comes through you, the feelings you feel that you can share with the collective is sometimes way more valuable, you know, because it's things that come from deep within your soul. And especially like you mentioned nature a lot. And I have such a protective, what can I say, feeling towards nature, you know,

and how we are connected to it. how we have forgotten to be wildly human, how we've forgotten to kind of live in communion, such a beautiful word that you use, with the wild, with nature, with the wild within us, that's kind of that part that always wants to come out and play in the world. You know, I feel like when I was reading your book, it made me feel very playful. And I really appreciated that, the color and all of that. So that to me was quite a surprising feeling, but I'm quite curious. what was surprising to you because as an author putting together,

Nike said you did a lot of academic work and that's quite structured. But then putting all of this together, you must have felt a certain process evolve within yourself of healing or what was surprising for you and your journey. Okay, that's, thank you, Nicole. And in my journey, so this is, if someone asks me about writing poetry, it's good that I was not socialized as a poet. Yes, we all have done a bit of creative writing,

even from our high school days and a bit of creative writing in our university experiences. But that's not the essence of my work as a professor. So what that did, it freed me. And you'll see I speak about freedom a lot, this intellectual freedom. Even in the sense of justice, there's democratic freedom.

It is when you have the sense that you don't know the rules, so therefore you've broken the rules because you don't know the rules. You know, Picasso talked about, you know, when we look at the work Picasso, how he moved from a true representational artist to abstractism, then people are so surprised by the variety and the deviation from where he originally started. But he himself mentioned that.

you can't break the rules until you know the rules. So when you know the rules, you can break them. Well, for me, my work originated from another premise, because I don't know the rules, then I have broken them. And so whether it was my writing, I looked at my paintings, the texture, the movements, the feelings that I want to evoke, the rhythm that I want to evoke in my brush strokes, the same rhythmic patterns you'll find in my writing,

simply because they're coming from, as my soul feels free, it's free to be, it soars, it captures the whole essence of my being without anyone saying, remember the rules, remember the different ways, this is not how we do it. And so that freedom became challenging, but it also became liberating. So to answer your question then, Nicole, it was the greatest part of writing and compiling the work was the vulnerability that I had to expose myself to allow myself to be fully seen, truthfully, writing about identity.

First, I have to figure out what's my own identity as a Jamaican person, my own identity growing up in my family, a large family, working class family, transitioning to living full-time in the United States. So being vulnerable about that, what was my experience? There's a huge difference between a sense of community here in the U.S. that I've experienced from what a sense of community is in developing countries that I've worked and in my own culture that I grew up in. And so this emotional nakedness just He wanted me to be truly vulnerable in revisiting my childhood experiences, my losses, my own naivety.

Maybe you can see some naivety coming through in the way that I've written and the way that I've painted. The losses, the moments of injustice that meant for me, inner pain and bringing those inner pain to the pen, to the work, to the writings, to the painting with honesty and dignity. And if I, I hope the reader can pick those, that sense of vulnerability and authenticity

out of my work. Because there are periods in my life and even now I'm still in the season of reflection and renewal has confronted my own sense of being performative, being performative as a sibling, being performative as a professor or as a worker, just to look at your being and as this is really truly you. So I feel very privileged to have had a chance in life to take a step back and to be reflective and then to write about those reflections in the latter poems that I wrote. There are some points I wrote many years ago that are just, just, they flow so authentically.

But in this last couple of years, in compelting the book, to take that chance to ask yourself, is this really, are you honoring yourself? Are you honoring nature? Are you honoring the creator? Are you honoring your spiritual life? And so it's really, Nicole, this authentic voice that meld together,

like poetic, spiritual, ecological, sociological life. How do they coexist in one body of work? And that was a challenge that I overcame in doing this book. I seen every time I wanted to kind of comment on what you were saying now, I felt like I was kind of lost my voice because I'm feeling the feelings that you're explaining, you know, and I feel like creating and compiling something like this is so vulnerable, the word you used. And it's just a, I love an emotional nakedness. I mean, I'm going to steal that one.

Because it is, I think once you, especially, I think, like you said, you know, thinking about your family. And I wonder have you shared the book with them and how have they felt in response to it? Oh, yes. They all have bought the book. Well, not all. Some are still in the process of getting the book. And, you know, your family, because they grew up with you and they saw everything about you, all your vulnerabilities and all your mistakes. And, you know, like when my mom was alive and I would visit her and I'm just a little bit careful.

and a little bit sincerely happy to be with her and frolicing as they did as a child. And she would often say, hey, aren't you a university professor? And because the tendency is that your siblings will see you as the person they grew up with and the girliness. And when you made your mistakes, because you've made your, you've made your, big blunders in front of them. And they'll remember those things. And sometimes they'll read a poem

that I've written in it's, oh, this is nice. And I'll say, what makes it nice? And they're not that analytic. Oh, I like the way you said the flowers, that water flies, kiss the flowers. They're not getting to the depth of my scholarly self. And my creative self

that I think, a complete independence, a strange. like my mentors or someone else might view the work. But I know they enjoy in me or the work I've produced. They're joyful about the paintings I give them sometimes. They're joyful about the fact that I've published a book on my work. So it's a pleasure and a privilege to share with them and to see their reactions which are different from.

Maybe like yourself, a stranger and other readers. I can only imagine, I mean, if I protect me and my family and what they would say and feel and, yeah, it's a, I think it's probably quite a process of healing and detachment too from, like you said, identities you've had, but identities you've taken on, things that you kind of bring with you from the inner child and young child, the things you've morphed and transformed and let go. So it's beautiful to see all these things kind of come together. And as you were writing, I mean, you obviously wrote these things over time as they inspired you, but did you have sort of like a writing process or within the publishing process that you worked on things? Like if you think of authors that are starting their journey today, is there something that you've learned in your journey that you can kind of share? It's helpful. And I know it's not an easy publishing a book.

So big kudos to you for doing that. Well, thank you. for that question, Nicole. And because of the uniqueness of my own journey, what I've realized is that my artistic self and my scholarly self are not separate. So I can begin there. Somebody's work in the academy

and publishing scientific work. So when I write on social justice issues and you can see them in the poems that I've written, there's some kinship between them. When I'm writing about nature, and reverence for humanity. You can see the kinship between them. Even in my academic work that I did not recognize,

I did not, I wrote about them in my academic work, but I did not recognize that I was looking at humanity from the perspective of reverence for nature and the value of the social being and their own. innate, authentic sense of belonging that I wrote so intensely about, until I began to use the creative lens, the artistic lens, writing and understanding and interpreting, those same concepts. So that part of it really uncovered for me as a

surprise and discovery, as you've asked Nico. For me, my journey. So for other writers, what would I advise them? I'm going to go back to those questions I ask. myself, who am I as a sister, as a professor, as a Christian, as someone living in the community? A deep sense of reflective questioning, inquiry, personal inquiry, how my childhood tracks, now that I have the analytic ability to look back at them, what meaning have they conveyed to my own humanity? So really asking those raw questions. And they don't have to be so intellectual or so scholarly or so philosophical that the person who wants to write might feel disconnected.

No, just be authentically you. What were the most meaningful elements of your childhood life? What are the most meaningful interactions you've had with community members? And why? and write them down. Not necessarily poetically, but write them down in your own voice. How did I discover my poetic voice?

It was just truly being sincere, truly being honest, truly being authentic, truly being reflective. And I think the beauty of each unique individual, because when you're growing up, you're conforming to all kinds of societal, rules and norms and expectations of behaviors not only in the family but in the workplace in the school system that you're part of. But begin to debunk that and find beauty in your

own self. If you were the only person living on the earth for a year, what would that beauty be like? Then you return to society and then you're connecting with others. What is the sense of the beauty of justice, the beauty of a sense of belonging in the culture, in the different groups that you're a part of, the beauty of creation. If you're asking yourself those questions all the time, the beauty of the people that are on the subway in New York City, they've written some poetry on being in New York. When I'm in the subway, I can see beauty. Like when I go to New York, I must be right on the subway because of the beauty I see. And people say, oh, Paulette, what's you talking about?

I love the energy of the diversity. I love the people who are rushing to work and the children who are crying. And those who are selling in the streets and the pizza in the streets and the beauty. And I'm just totally in awe of the beauty, of the thick culture that I notice in New York City. Now, I'm in Mount Poconos. And every day I'm taking a walk in the trees and among the woods. and I see the animals and I see and listen to the wind, just plain with the leaves,

the music that's coming from that. And this is not a superficial kind of acknowledgement. This evolves over time, as I mentioned. And that's where I would encourage the writer to look for their own inner beauty, their own inner challenges. And, you know, Carl Jung, this great psychopaths. psychologist who talks about the shadow of each individual. And that is a part of ourselves that we hide,

where there's shame, where there's a sense of jealousy, there's a part of ourselves where society does not want to see or does not honor or so we learn from an early age to hide those part of ourselves that exist. What I would encourage the reader, the potential writer, to do is to find out what part of themselves you have hidden, like I did. You know, I hid my own sense of inadequacy and shame and the sense of, like if you ask me from a jealous person, I'd say no, but then I dig deeper and I'll see there were moments of jealousy. And when did they occur?

And put those things down on paper and weave them into the writing. And that's how the reader will connect with your true sense. of personhood. It was very difficult to unravel and to clout those elements of the shadow in my work. But it's so rewarding and so liberating. I'm grateful that you did because we get to share in that. And you know, when I'm watching you talk about all of this and every time that I see you go into the zone of seeing the beauty, how you light up and smile. And I could just listen to you talk and write it forever. And on that, I want to ask what's next for the book?

Are you putting out an audio book? Is there a new next season? Or what can we kind of celebrate with you? You were so thoughtful for asking me that. Yeah, well, thank you for asking me that. And, you know, we're thinking about just to reconnect with what I said previously about the potential writer or the readers who might read my book. I encourage them to listen deeply to their own stories.

Therefore, your voice is relevant. I would say write down without judgment, because that's what I was trying to communicate earlier. Just write down about yourself without judging yourself. Yeah, you're a jealous person. Don't judge yourself for that. That's part of your humanity. You're also a kind person on the other end.

You've been mean. You've also been very, very thoughtful of others. Honor your lived experience, I would say, to a potential writer. And if I was able to go back to when I was teaching in high school or teaching as a new professor, I would say to my students, let nature teach you.

Nature is full of everything we need to learn, of sharing, of collaborating, of renewal. When you live in a place like the United States where you have the four seasons and not, southern states, you can see death, renewal, a fruiting, when there's a season for fruits, and there's a season when there's nothing coming, and then you feel like when you, in the winter,

and this is used as an analogy in many brightens that have seen in the winter where nothing seems to be, everything seems to be lifelifts. And we already know that there is geotrophism taking place where the plants are growing down. So there's photos synthesis and photosynthesis, and phototrophic activities in the spring. So I want them to learn from nature.

And if you're writing, don't rush the process. As I told you, this whole book did not just happen overnight. And as I would tell my students, you have a voice, but protect that voice and be authentic and not performative. So I confess that I was performative because you're always trying to figure out what other people desire a few and, you know, doing what you think they want without. But now I've switched it around. Be honest and authentic with yourself.

So if you ask me, where do I go from here? I want to convey those principles to others. And a second book, yeah, I would love to write a second book with outside of academic serious writing about identity and justice and feminine strength and feminine leadership. And those are very critical issues. I want to continue in forming in my work, writing about those issues. but also taking out those serious matters and presenting them to the world in a creative way. I also want to have a gallery exhibition of my paintings. Those paintings are huge, and in the book you'll see that I've given the sizes,

and I would like to have a gallery exhibition paired with poetry reading. And my ultimate dream as I retire is to create what I will call a sanctuary. house after I've retired a space for creatives, a space for little children from 5 to 18 to explore their own sense of personal leadership. I did not understand or even know the term self-leadership and want them to begin to build their creative elements and sense of self-leadership. and like in a form of picture this place where it's like a retreat, it's a sanctuary, it's a space, a creative space, it's a place that honors renewal and reflection and revelation of South. I'd like to speak in engagements and the future and since I'm an educator or maybe workshops. And there is one idea that I can throw there that I'm grappling with right now.

And it's called about, it's a book about hands of becoming. And literally I'll write creatively about the hands. Oh, these hands do so much and create so much in the world. And I would like to interview different persons from different sectors, from different races, from different professions, students. And they can write a little bit of a pair of. It says, these hands have helped me to do this. These hands have created.

And right now those doctors are in the operating theater. These hands have held a human heart and put it back. And these hands have created the majesty of this childhood fantasy island or something in these hands. You know, can you imagine just each person saying what these hands have done? I have goosebumps all over my body as you're talking about that, and I can't wait to see that in the world, because it's so profound, and we take them for granted often, you know, and they're such a big part of our vessel, of our energy bubble,

you know, that help us do in the world and create and write poetry and hold the microphone so we can talk. And all these beautiful things. Thank you. There's so much to celebrate with you going forward, and I'm so, so excited for this book, for the next coming, for everything that you're still going to share your voice in with people. We really honor you sharing your heart out in the world

in the way you have and are. So thank you for that. And thank you for doing that with us here on the Fields podcast and the Stack series today. It means the world. And I really hope everyone who's listening can delve into a bit more of who they authentically are and sit still with that and have grace with that. Absolutely.

Honor the process, honor the life you've lived to this point, and that it inspires everyone that's tuning in today. Thank you so very much for having me. Nicole, it was my pleasure. Such a, such a big pleasure. And all the best with your writing. And for those who are tuning in for the next one, we hope that you are reading. that you are happy and that you are happily reading. Until the next time.