The Coffee Guest
Bonnie Nish
interviews ~
T Paul Ste. Marie
T Paul Ste. Marie: Rocks and Shakes Vancouver
T Paul Ste. Marie
creates a buzz around him. The energy level must rise a whole three or 4 notches
when he walks into a room, whether it is Sunday evenings at the Café Montmartre
where he hosts the incredibly successful and jammed packed room for
Thundering
Word Heard or in a high school where he teaches kids about poetry and
the importance of creating. T.Paul is a mover and a shaker and he is definitely
moving and shaking things all over Vancouver and in the Province for that
matter.
Off to the Lieutenant Governor’s mansion to cover
the BC Book prize, (To be aired soon Check his website) T. Paul is excited by
the prospect of yet another avenue he has added to the ever-expanding creative
ventures he has become involved with over the years.
“ Daniel Ritchler had seen a TV pilot I made for
CBC Edmonton and wanted to work with me. When I didn’t hear back from him in a
month I emailed suggesting that he needed a BC correspondent for Book TV “ T
Paul beams as he tells me. "I signed my contract last night.”
But this is just a small part of who T Paul is and
what he does. Raised mainly in Ontario and having lived in England for a number
of years with his family, he has traveled many roads to get him to this point in
his life. His experiences have included everything from being a bar room
bouncer to a shoe shine boy, to teaching summer theatre to kids and giving
fifteen sermons a day in a Pentecostal Church in Jamaica.
“ I had found God in Kitchener Ontario and the
youth pastor asked me if I would go to their church in Jamaica and run their
youth program. I got started and soon was up to fifteen sermons. Then while I
was there I lost God and got into other things.”
It is definitely this wealth of experience that
makes kids relate to him so easily.
“ I was told I was stupid a lot in school. I had a
teacher who saved me. I dropped out for a while and then went back. My parents
were both really creative people. It helped me with the creative process when I
was young.”
T Paul feels that for himself if he had been given
some desire to bother with poetry as a kid he would have been happy. He feels
the way poetry was taught was similar to biology and dissecting a frog. There
was no way to make it come alive and for T Paul poetry is very much a living,
breathing thing that he has been taking into schools all over Vancouver and as
far away as Kitamat.
“When I go into the schools I combine a bit of the
street wisdom and performance. I let the kids know there is no wrong answer. I
try to show them that you can take two sentences you wouldn’t normally put
together and make it work.”
When he speaks you can see the passion in his eyes
for what he does, much the same way when he speaks of music the other great
influence in his life.
“ My dad loved jazz. He took me to see
everyone. When I sit down and write, it is with a jazz rhythm a lot of the time.
I started realizing the Beat Poets had a whole lot of influences from jazz
musicians. When I write there is definitely a musical influence there. Music
influences all my life. Elegantly and beautifully”
This combination comes into other areas of his
life. Thundering Word Heard is just one example. T Paul says he started
Thundering Word Heard with the idea that he wanted to create a place where both
music and spoken word could come together and be given a place that was their
own. And he has done just that. After three years the room is still full every
Sunday night even on a long weekend. It takes a lot of time, commitment and a
big heart to keep putting on something like this every single week. But it has
paid off. Thundering Word continues to be a great success and T Paul’s
reputation as a host and organizer continues to grow as well.
“ I have my hands in a million and
one things that all seem to have the center in that hub Thundering Word Heard.”
What is next? T Paul wants to take a bit of a
break and get into his own writing. Lately he says he has started to paint but
he feels something inside of him changing and growing and he needs the time to
tune into that and get it down on paper.
“ I feel there has been a leaning towards putting
it out there with your writing needing to have a cause and be forceful. I just
want to take a break and get back to the gentler kind of writing that I think
will come out.”
Other things he has up his sleeve? Production,
design, acting in Tony’ N Tina’s Wedding, writing a one man show in the next
year based on his life experiences and of course continuing to give workshops in
the schools. He has a real passion for that and sees the need especially today.
“I tell these kids to use your vocabulary as your
palette, the more vocabulary you learn and the more that you read the history of
poetry the more you are arming yourself to battle and influence. I own a TV but
damn it that thing scares me sometimes. These kids have such fertile
imaginations, which need the right person to spur these imaginations and for the
large part they aren’t getting it. “
T Paul is planting fertile ground for the next
wave of young poets coming up but in the meantime he will continue to shake the
earth under our feet as he goes, bringing all kinds of new dynamics to the
spoken word scene. We can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.
