Al St. Louis

Neil Armstrong

Al St. Louis will be representing
Toronto in the national finals of the CBC Radio One Poetry Face-Off Championship from April
4th to 7th during National Poetry Month.
The barber-by-day, poet by-night emerged the winner
of the Toronto poetry face-off competition in early March after battling fellow poets – Dwayne Morgan, Bomba, Masia One and Soul-R. Each poet was given the word "play" to write a poem and to perform
it in front of an audience.
The audience at Hugh's Room on March 1 voted St. Louis the winner.
Similar poetry events took place across Canada. St.
Louis hopes to walk away with the trophy as the national champion.
The Poetry Face-Off, which is in its fourth year, saw sixty poets compete in thirteen cities from
Yellowknife to St. Johns between January and March. The thirteen regional winners will head to the
national finals where listeners to CBC Radio
One's The R o u n d u p, heard 2:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. in Toronto will vote for the national winner. A toll-free number will be set up as well as a website for polling. The national champion will be announced on the show on Thursday, April 14th. CBC TV's Artspots will also create short films of some of the poems.
St. Louis, who celebrated his 32nd birthday recently, is very positive about his chances of being the national winner. The former
Basketball player turned - entrepreneur turned poet and actor remembers winning a pair of tickets for a poetry event from CHRY Radio in 2000. It was that event that piqued his interest to perform his poetry, which he has been recording since 1998. St. Louis the 6-foot, curly-Afro poet describes himself as a leader. It is this kind of thinking that has propelled him to open his barbershops, to start his poetry series and to pursue a career in acting.
St. Louis met African-American filmmaker,
Spike Lee who spoke in Toronto recently, and asked him about the future of spoken word. Lee told him that spoken word will go as far as the artist is willing to take it. For St. Louis, spoken word is the medium from which change will come. His spoken word series is a platform for other leaders to share their vision.
St. Louis recites the mantra,
"Because I see the invisible,
I will do the impossible," which he says encapsulates his daily goals.
He also has plans to launch his first CD of poetry in mid-
2005; a book will come later when he thinks he has all the right pieces in place. St. Louis hopes to become Canada's William Shakespeare. For him, "all the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players." Tune in to his winning poem about play during the poetry face-off broadcasts and see him play at www.whenwordsarespoken.
com.
- The Gleaner Company (Canada) Inc.

AL
Again it is always my pleasure to be in your precense. I love listening to your CD believe that... You are an amazing performer and I feel at complete peace when I hear your SPOKEN WORD. I believe that you are going to take the T-DOT poetry scene on a whole new level... just adding your unique touch to the many others that have paved the way and contributed to a very diverse group of poets. - Jackie Stewart

Hi, ****

I mentioned to you in an email before that I had invited the Spoken Word Poet, Al St. Louis, to come to Erindale as part of our Black History Month celebration.

Well, he was awesome! The kids loved him! The teachers loved him! We had two presentations, including a mix of classes signed up by their teachers and kids on their lunches, voluntarily attending. The first performance was great; in fact, I think it may have been the best: it was a little smaller and had a really intimate feeling. It was a safe place for kids to really express their love of poetry; Al invited a couple of budding poets to come up and perform and they did, to amazing support from their peers. Here was the real test: when the bell rang, nobody moved, because Al was in mid-poem....and nobody rustled a bag, or anything for 5 minutes. You know how chained to the clock we are, and how the kids get hassled by their teachers if they're late (I'm chief among these)....well, they decided it was worth the punishment, if some was coming. (P.S. The second performance was so jam-packed...word spread...that we had kids in the aisles and standing in every inch of space.)
I really think that your students would benefit from (and enjoy) hearing Al perform. He is a skilled artist, a real 'show man'--able to connect with his audience-- and a person who inspires kids to be true to themselves, their histories and their visions. - Maureen Shaw Eridale Collegiate Secondary school