a conversation with AJOESAINT.
We’re grateful to speak with multifaceted spoken word artist Aaron Joseph St. Louis, creatively known as AJOESAINT, about poetry, creative community, and his involvement with Hue Gallery in Downtown Hartford.
We also get into The Family Room, an upcoming poetry night happening September 25 in collaboration with Hue. Read below for our conversation with AJOESAINT, and if you still have the chance, grab your ticket today.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
THE 413 JOINT: First, introduce yourself. Who is AJOESAINT?
AJOESAINT: What's going on? My name is Aaron Saint Louis. I go by AJoeSaint, poet, spoken word artist, raps here and there, hosting, event curation, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.
THE 413 JOINT: You wear a lot of hats. Where has most of your energy been going lately?
AJOESAINT: As of lately, it's been writing. It's been writing all kinds of writing, raps and poetry. I hit a dry spell earlier this year and I had one of those moments like, dang, I think it's over. But thankfully, it kind of just came back. Like, I feel like the younger me, except more refined, still got that hunger of the younger me, that creativity of the younger me, but like just a little sharper.
THE 413 JOINT: Tell me about your involvement with the Hue Gallery. How did that start?
AJOESAINT: Yeah. No, absolutely. So the Hue Gallery, I'm a part of their street team and it's run by a friend of mine, Hype [creatively known as Urban Collab Visuals]. Urban Collab Visuals and Amber are the co-owners. I knew Urban Collab Visuals previously. We actually met at this random event in Connecticut. It was pretty much like a shed where a bunch of musicians meet up and they all play. They jam out with each other, completely impromptu. And they would ask artists to go up. So I did a verse and Urban Collab Visuals was there doing photography and she took pictures of me, some fire, fire pictures of me. And that's how we connected.
From there, we just kind of kept on staying connected. She had events where she'd asked me to be a part of it. I would of course show up, do poetry, all that good stuff. And then she reached out to me and was like, hey, I got this idea. Would you like to be a part of it? And I'm like, yeah, absolutely.
And that kind of grew into the Hue and being a part of the street team. And yeah, I got high hopes, not only to make the Hue a staple in the community, but to just kind of like propel myself and grow as an artist.
AJOESAINT. by Urban Collab Visuals
THE 413 JOINT: And how did the Family Room come together?
AJOESAINT: Yeah, absolutely. So the Family Room is a collaboration between myself and the photographer Hype, who goes as the Urban Collab. And of course, she's a visual artist. She's a visionary when it comes to that. So she had this idea for, let's kind of make this Family Room where artists or poets can come together and just express themselves in a comfortable, familiar space.
And of course, when it comes to the poetry and the artistry, I'm thinking through that, how I want features, hosting, just kind of creating that environment. And it just makes it better, even better that it's in a gallery.
THE 413 JOINT: What makes the Family Room different from a regular poetry night?
AJOESAINT: Of course setting helps the atmosphere, but I want the atmosphere to kind of just embody quality curation. It's still going to have its open mic portion of it.
And I can't tell you everything because there's some secrets, but it's kind of the curation of it. I want it to be more than just random poets going up and expressing themselves. Of course, that's always a good thing, but I want it to be a place that people come to expect a certain level of quality, a certain experience, and a certain togetherness that you just don't get at any other event.
THE 413 JOINT: So what should people expect when they come?
AJOESAINT: What should they be excited for? Dope poetry, to say the least. They should be excited for real connectivity because I feel like a lot of times it's always the audience and the poet, and there's just this separate distinction, audience and stage.
It's the Family Room. So anticipate some sharing of more than just words, but a sharing of a treat here and there, a late night snack as a family.
There's real gems, there's real quality, there's real stuff that can take home with you. There's real poetry that sticks to your ribs.
photos from The Hue Gallery, featuring Elegant Tears by Xavier Ayala
THE 413 JOINT: Who are some of your favorite poets? Who do you pull inspiration from?
AJOESAINT: Absolutely. So I'm such a bad poet.
THE 413 JOINT: I like your poetry. I'm listening.
AJOESAINT: I appreciate it, I appreciate it. The reason I say I'm a bad poet is my favorite poets is anybody who's live in front of me. Like I'm able to pull inspiration from any and everybody and any and everything.
So when people say like, oh, who's your favorite poet? Who's inspired you? And everybody kind of has like, oh yeah, Maya Angelou, Baldwin, Gil Scott Heron, the more contemporary folks like Rudy and those individuals. It's like, they're great. Of course, they laid foundations and some people are continuing laying that path.
But people who I call friends and I have their numbers, they're my favorite poets. Like Midnight is my favorite poet. Influence is my favorite poet. Like my guy who's featuring, Phil C. Alexander is one of my favorite poets. It's anybody who I can get that direct person to person experience and really capture and captivate. That's like my favorite.
THE 413 JOINT: It’s different seeing poetry live versus reading it. It’s a different experience.
AJOESAINT: Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that's one of the beauties of spoken word because, of course the writing is important, the writing is paramount, but there's a performance aspect of it that needs to be refined as well.
I consider it a different talent that a good poet has to figure out for themselves, not only with the words, because the words can be really good, but if you don't perform it right, it doesn't really hit well. And on the flip side, the words can suck. But if you perform it well, there won't be none the wiser.
AJOESAINT. by Urban Collab Visuals
THE 413 JOINT: When you're writing, how does something usually start for you?
AJOESAINT: Yeah. So I like my stuff very, very cerebral. I like it emotional as I can get. I like it honest. And it's been changing and evolving and kind of settling in some areas, but getting extreme in other areas.
But at the end of the day, it's kind of more so like a certain moment or a certain idea or a certain feeling kind of captures me and I put down one line about it and it makes me want to expand on it.
Like, I think one of my most recent poems that people kind of know about, it's like a year and change old, but it's been getting a lot of love recently. It's called Dead End Job and it's pretty much about how, well, it starts off: I've seen my job assign tasks to a dead man.
And that's not like hyperbole. That's real. A coworker of mine died.
And the way my job works is they send cases to people to resolve issues. And if you're on the same team, you get other people's emails, and seeing his name pop up saying, hey, this is assigned to you, it's due this date, it just kind of sent a very uncomfortable chill down my spine.
And that's where the first line came from. And then it kind of just expanded from there. How do I feel working a job, even though I'm a mechanical engineer by trade? So it's technically not a dead end job, but at the same time, I saw somebody die there. And I have hopes and dreams of artistry.
So it's like literally a dead end job in a certain type of way. So I kind of expanded on that, made it more thematic by adding these references to death in it. I referenced Valhalla, I referenced the River Styx, I referenced scriptures, life and death and the power of the tongue. Just to kind of really hammer in on that theme, to kind of make the words heavier than just the individual lines.
THE 413 JOINT: And when you're writing, how is it different for you when it's poetry versus rap?
AJOESAINT: That's a very good question because I do approach them differently. Rap wise, I'm, I think more structured structurally rap wise, obviously, because you have a certain BPM to respect. And if you're really, really, really good, you can disrespect it while making it sound good, but that takes some skill. Not everybody's Andre 3000.
When I think of a cappella poetry wise, I feel like it's my rawest form of expression because I don't have to worry about a meter. I don't have to worry about timing. People notice with my poetry, I speed up and slow down as I see fit. I pause in the middle of a sentence. Sometimes I complete a sentence and then just give you the first word of the next sentence and take a pause. Like that part is fun for me. And I don't think about doing that. It's just kind of organic. It just happens like that.
With rap and songs, you can be a little more abstract. You can be a little more nuanced. You can be a little more sneaky. You can be a little more personal in a way that people's like, oh, I don't know what that means, but maybe I can do some digging and figure that out.
THE 413 JOINT: When somebody leaves the Family Room, or even just hears your work, how do you want them to feel?
AJOESAINT: I want people to feel less alone. I want people to feel a little more understood. I want people to understand God a little more, love life. I want to just give people a little bit of hope because I feel like being perpetually online, following the news, worrying about your own issues, and you should worry about your own issues, but it can be very heavy on your heart and mind and that negatively impacts people.
And it feels like everybody's walking around like zombies and everybody knows it, but nobody wants to bring it up. It's like this poorly kept secret that you're not supposed to talk about it, but like, no, I'm gonna talk about it.
There's more to life than the struggle. There's more to life than hurting ourselves and hurting each other. There's a lot for us.
So I hope people come away from that, from the Family Room, from connecting with me in general, to just feel more like themselves. The good version of themselves, the healthy version of themselves, the as healed as we possibly can be version of themselves.
THE 413 JOINT: Before we wrap up, what are you working on right now? Anything you want people to look out for?
AJOESAINT: I'm always working on something. I'm really bad at putting out stuff. Like me putting out videos is like my cheat code. But I do need to put out more things.
I've always been in the works of a collection, whether it's an EP or an album or a book. That's always in the works. In the meantime, please continue to check out my Instagram and all the cool stuff happening there. Please continue to check out the Hue Gallery. There's gonna be a lot of fun stuff happening there.
We got the Family Room coming up. We got Gallery Hour, which is a live deejaying recording set that my boy DJ Biggs JD is going to be doing and also curating as many other DJs there. It's going to be a vibe. That event's free. Mine is not. I gotta pay the feature.
But yeah, no, that's kind of what's going on. And whatever God has for me, the spontaneity of life and yeah, all that's good.
Thank you for reading. Keep up with AJOESAINT and the Hue Gallery for upcoming work, events, and updates on the Family Room.
