To contribute to the Ted Joans Lives! webpages, please email us.Pieces may be any length. All contributions received will be published online. You will retain the copyright to your work.

Please also see Ted Joans links & resources and Ted Joans books for sale.

Eric Benveniste:

TED LIVES!

Dan Fox:

I only met Ted Joans once - in the late 80s, at a publication party for Gregory Corso's Mindfield, hosted by Roger Richards. This was at a bar on Canal Street (Smokestack Lightnin', I think).

I was wide-eyed when I saw him. I said, 'I can't believe you're here.'

Ted said, 'We will always be here.'

I liked that.

Bob Rosenthal:

What I loved about Ted was that he life did not embitter him. He remained steadfast as an artist who knew his value and was satisfied -- inspiration to all of us who struggle on the path and only hope to keep to it.

Ted Joans Lives

One fine French noontime in Spring of 1978 found me:
_graduated
_alone in the world
_stone broke
_sworn to write
_determined to live in Paris as long as I could

and on that Spring noontime
I first heard, saw, and was swept into the whirlwind of
the phenomenon that is
(still is)
Ted Joans

because Ted Joans Lives

Ted Joans Lives

yes, Ted Joans Lives

One fine Spring noontime
Ted is holding court in Shakespeare and Co. bookstore
across from Notre Dame on Paris left bank;
Ted is ebullient and fearless
striking up conversations with bookstore browsers
introducing strangers to strangers
and within minutes
assembles a group of interesting world travelers
to join him on a picnic expedition
to the banks of the Seine

Such is his charm and disarming imagination
that he gets another few
cool young folk to join the growing group
by simply stopping them on the street

a non-stop stream of improvised language
opening up people's conventional reserve
with humor, playful energy,
and the big-picture vision of the Poet

sitting by the River in a laughing group,
eating well according to the
Ted Joans Theory of Picnics
(everyone brings a complete picnic for one person;
thus you never wind up with imbalanced fare;
everybody shares bites all around)

Ted Joans leads the conversation sparklingly,
getting everyone talking about Real Subjects
(heart, mind, love, life)
--- no bullshit, no hollow chit chat

and Ted Joans proclaiming his beatnik surrealist values:
"Jazz is My Religion"
"My Holy Trinity: Food, Sex, & Art"

and by his every action
declaring that Today need not be like every other day
Today can be Spontaneous and Free and Absorbed with Important Poetry

Ted Joans Lives

Ted Joans sat patiently in his tiny chambre de bonne in Paris with National
Geographic map on his knees and told me about Africa, all I never learned in
American school

Thank You Ted Joans

Ted Joans, my mentor, my direct teacher of rhino personal energy traditions
of Surrealism, Beats, African word sorcery

Thank You Ted Joans

Ted Joans taught me how to live cheap in Paris, where I stayed a year and
had lifechanging adventues

Thank You Ted Joans

He wouldn't necessarily remember me (though he did, kindly),
but I ABSOLUTELY NECESSARILY remember him

Thank you Ted Joans

Ted Joans Lives

above all Ted Joans taught me this priceless lesson

_Poetry is an attitude that can be lived in everyday life_

Thank You Ted Joans

Hail Ted Joans Poet

Hail Ted Joans Jazz Musician

Hail Ted Joans Who Said He Dubbed Himself Joans for a Beloved Joan

Hail Ted Joans Who Brings a Room Alive by Being in it

Hail Ted Joans Fireball Beatnik Friend of Keraberg and Ginsouac

Hail Ted Joans resident of New York Paris Timbuktu, Mali

Hail Ted Joans African American, Who Knows What of Himself is African and
What of Himself is American

Hail Ted Joans Surrealist Because Breton Named Him Surrealist

Hail Ted Joans Man With the Power to Turn Blah Day Into Lifetime Memory

Hail Ted Joans Who Said "the only thing you have to fear from the poet . . . is the truth"

Ted Joans Lives

--- Rob Wittig

Howard Park:

I only met Ted Joans once, at the 1994 NYU Beat Conference. According to my somewhat altered consciousness and memory of the time, Ted and Jack Micheline stole the show. At the time, Ted was living, at least part-time, in Timbuktu (did I spell it right?). He seemed to delight in the reactions of young white kids like myself who had never met anyone from Timbuktu and very few people who had known Jack Kerouac. Timbuktu seemed even more exotic than Kerouac.

Ted's poetry readings that weekend were pure joy. His humor and genuine nostalgia, in the best sense of the word, for the lost New York of the 1950s and 60's really shined. I remember he was also a huge flirt at the conference -- and all the women loved him.

Ted may not have been among the golden circle of Beat Generation poets. Others had better press agents. In my humble opinion Ted was underestimated. He projected, better than anyone, a pure sense of the fun enjoyed by the beats of that long gone era. This was not a man who seemed to be haunted by Moloch.

It's too bad more people never met Ted or heard him read. Ted especially remembered getting paid $20 an hour (a huge sum at the time) at a "rented beatnik" when the swells of New York City would pay for the likes of him to attend their oh so chic parties. What a goof! Ted Joans was the real thing!

Tony Seymour:

IN TED JOANS' BIOGRAPHY, HE TELLS A STORY ABOUT WHEN HE FIRST READ FOR LANGSTON HUGHES, WHEN HE SAW LANGSTON IN THE AUDIENCE, HIS VOICE WENT UP AN OCTAVE CAUSE HE WAS SOOO NERVOUS TO READ IN FRONT OF THE POETRY MASTER. I HAD JUST READ THAT LITTLE STORY BEFORE I WAS TO READ WITH HIM AT A BOB KAUFMAN TRIBUTE AT NEW COLLEGE IN THE LATE 80'S. SURE ENUF, HISTORY REPEATED ITSELF........THIS TIME, I WAS THE ONE WHO'S VOICE WENT UP INTO THE VIENNA BOYS CHOIR RANGE AND STAYED THEIR THE ENTIRE READING, CAUSE I WAS SO ENTHRALLED THAT I WAS BEING HEARD BY THE TED JOANS! AND THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING I COULD TRY THAT WOULD BRING THE VOICE BACK TO NORMAL DURING THE HALF HOUR READING. HERE I WAS READING IN FRONT OF THE MAN WHO USED TO LIVE WITH BIRD, AND THE ONE WHO CAME UP WITH THE PHRASE BIRD LIVES.........TEDUCATION LIVES NOW!

WHERE IS HEAVEN?

HEAVEN

THE RETURN TO

THE-SPACE-OF-SINGULARITY

BEFORE-THE-BIG-BANG!

one - two - three - four - five - six - seven - eight - nine - ten - eleven - recent