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.

Dudley Merchant:

I met up with Ted Joans in June of 1978 in Paris. He was great to read with and we had two readings together and a few more parties. Ted is alive as I think of him often. He was really against the French learning to rent their cars, car leases, and the debts of the ordinary citizen. I last saw Ted at a barge party on the Seine in August of 1978, before I returned to the U.S.; I was saddened to read about his leaving the corporeal. I will take chalk to Greenwich Village and scrawl out loud that Ted lives!

Cordley Coit

Ted Joans  (unfinished documentary)
Music: Ornette Coleman's Empty Foxhole
Red beans and rice, wet pussy, nice.
We know where the .38 lives
where the rule of switchblades reign.
We waited for Brother Malcolm, Orly:
only for him he was diverted by death. 

Pause a full measure: Sax Solo
>From the last of Ted to Shakespeare & Co.
Armed with a pen, pocket cornet, herb, and gris-gris
teaching food, sex and art to listeners.
Always with missionary eyes for the uncool.

Bass line:
We knew along with a platoon of girl reporters
what just for kicks meant
And what the nice colored man was thinking
respectful as a shank stuck in a red neck... 

Mama Drum solo:
Africa traveled in his bag brining together Black culture
DADA DADA DADA DADaaaah 
Elders said he was the last, the last, their last.
A close call

Thumb Piano and Bass:
Ted: I mourn you with a beautiful woman,
I mourn you when I tell the truth,
I mourn you with sons and daughters under a black flag
It ends here at the beginning. It ends at the beginning. Here at the beginning.
Here beginning...
Bring it together:

2003, Simla, Colorado

John Bibby:

I met Ted twice - in Timbuktu (1966) and in Algiers (1969).

I remember his immortal first words - "Haben Sie Sardinen?" (I was wearing Lederhosen - he assumed I was German - and he was on the edge of the Sahara pining for sardines!)

We spent much of the next week together on the top of a lorry trying to get to Niamey - I must admit, I found a week with Ted rather trying, but he always had something new and peculiar to say.

He was very proud of his brother Leroy, and of his flat in Timbuktu. His knowledge of the local language was poor even for an American (sorry to let my national stereotypes hang out!). I recall an interesting incident in Algiers which involved booze and a rich web of people male and female; but it may be libellous so I can't print it here.

I did not know him well, but he was clearly a man of great energy and emotion. I was sorry to have lost touhc with him, and sorry to see his obituary in "The Guardian" last week.

Fight on, Ted Joans! - I am sure you have touched many lives, not just mine.

Anne Baxter:

The written word is not my medium, but I feel Ted would be pleased if I at least made an attempt to honor him and his "Teducation" though this great website. I first met Ted in Paris. It was 1988, and he came to my sculpture exhibit. My hermit tendencies didn't seem to phase him - we understood each other in a certain way as fellow Cancerian crabs. Ted has always been and continues to be for me the most incredible Muse. He dedicated his life to art and to artists, and always had an amazing ability to connect with all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds, completely through the heart. To be around Ted was to be around life/ fire.

Once many years ago Ted had a "finissage," a party to end his art exhibit. He did a poetry reading, along with some other poets. It was nice. I remember I was sitting in the back, depressed because I was having trouble paying the rent again. At the end, Ted made me stand up and told everyone, "look at her, you will someday see her work in the museums!" He was always encouraging to artists in this way, and I know there were many he inspired who went on to make a very good living. Ted "teducated" me on this subject: when people asked him what he did for a living, he told them "I breathe". Then he would tell them something like, "MONEY - what you really want to ask me is how do I get my money!"

Once Ted invited me to his birthday party. He said the only condition was that I had to bring him a present, and this one year he only wanted things that were practical, like underwear and socks. He "teducated" me that he didn't believe in following the fashion styles, as it supported the consumer culture. However, it can be noted that Ted had his own unique style, and always looked completely elegant. He told me his sock information: size and color preference (I think it was red or black). Then with great passion, he started to give the details of his underwear preferences, which I found a little embarrassing, so I told him I'd just get him socks.

Ted and Laura sent me his book of poems in April of 2003. Laura says she thinks it was the last time they wrote something together. Regarding my two-year old son, Ted wrote, "I hope he helps make world a marvelous poem to live in". I've been thinking a lot about Ted during the last two days, since I learned of his passing, and now I am pregnant with a new idea for a sculpture. TED LIVES!

William Cody Maher:

This picture I took at the Modern Art Museum in 97 I believe. A young black woman security guard had earlier approached us to say that we could not take the picture. The painting is of Charlie Parker from Ted. Ted attempted to ted-ucate the girl by explaining not only that he painted the picture but that she should learn more about her own history...she called the police. a police woman came and despite a shoving match of words we finally were allowed to take a picture of Ted standing proud before his painting of Charlie Parker at an exhibit in honour of The Beats. Apparently there are rules about taking pictures of art in a Museum even if you are the artist that painted the picture you can be put in jail for having someone photograph you...has anything in america changed.....?

Valery Oisteanu:

I met Ted Joans in New York 1973, 30 years ago, through Charles Henri Ford as a fellow surrealist and collaborated with him at his "Exquisite corpses" that he had produced over the years one long scroll of pictures and words. We met at The Living Theater reunions, in Soho and at readings at Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church on the Bowery. He gave me one of his books of poetry and collage colaboration with Joyce Mansour: Flying Piranha 1978 and I gave him my book of poetry. His death is very hard to take because he was the last of his kind: Jazz-surrealist-poet-artist! Ted Joans lives!

Ted Joans-The Priest of Jazz

He was ready to play anytime
He was able to take on anyone
In Paris, Berlin or "Tombouctou"
Jazz was his religion till the end

Traveling Surrealist- shaman
With a hammock and beats book
Under his horny arms
Bird's music in his heart

Preaching for Charlie Parker
Langston Hughes, the Beats
Jazzoetry,mouth and teeth
Triple-trouble-Ted flutters by

Available for impromptu lecture
Or a tumble in a crumpled bed
Surreal Dreams of Afrodisia
And Instant mirrors for Rhinos

He kissed unpardonable Pussy
He liberated sexually oppressed
Fomented,berated & poetisezed
Ted Joans-" Nomadic Consciousness"

Hilary Hopseker:

Ted Joans- Lover of Life, Lover of Truth. Fearless and tireless in spirit, you sparked my passion for life and illuminated my path. I am so thankful for my teducation. Thank you Ted for hipping me to the beauty in the struggle for what is truth. Never 'problematic' (you just happened to be born in a problematic society) but rather the most generous soul I have ever encountered, you continue to inspire my poem life. To you, I pour libations of Black Velvets. I smile fondly when I picture you embraced by the ancestors. Ted Joans Lives!

Michael Kellner:

These photos were taken March 1981 at the Amerikahaus in Hamburg, where Ted gave a lecture - I find them very appropriate for this sad situation. They were published only once in the second edition of "Blitzliebe Poems", then called "Mehr Blitzliebe Poems."

William Cody Maher:

For Ted Joans

First time we met was in Paris in 78 at Shakespeare Books. We began a poetry reading series. One afternoon Ted and I came out of a Marx brother film ( Ted always said he was a Marx brother. Not Karl but Groucho). A voice from across the street "Hey Ted." It was Aime Cesaire,the great Poet who wrote Return to My Native Land. Ted was nomadic in spirit. For the next 20 years I would run into him. Sometimes reading poems together and sometimes just by chance in different cities. I am trying to organize a tribute to Ted in Berlin where he spent a good deal of time on his way back and forth to Paris and the Sahara. Ted is still out there. He is a guide. Trust him!

Stephen Ronan:

By the time of Ted's visits to City Lights I had attended at least one of his readings. Usually he would read at Cody's Books in Berkeley. I remember good turn-outs and a general delight with Ted's charismatic renditions of his poems of profundity and humor. He always seemed borne up by everyone's appreciation.

He was singular in many ways not the least of which was that he got Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Nancy Peters to put him up at City Lights Bookstore itself. Alone among the various visiting poets (and needy local poets) he got to bed down on a secretive futon in the editorial office upstairs as it was configured in 1980s. I remember later borrowing the futon for a guest at my home and Nancy suggesting that I not return it.

During these visits Ted would often hang out at the store and spend time chatting with whoever was working the front counter and often that was me.

During one of Ted's visits to City Lights he had one of his Teducation sessions at the apartment of V.Vale. Vale was another former City Lights employee who went started Search and Destroy San Francisco's first Punk paper and was at this time getting started with his RE Search journal and publishing imprint. It was an amusing night and another of the three great Black poets of the Beat era was in attendence--the legendary Bob Kaufman. As was his way, he didn't say much but hung out with us in wordless and benign blessing.

Ted showed videotapes of his adventures in Europe spoke and read a little. Afterward I heard Vale insisting that he not take up a collection from these invited guests. Ted had to keep his show on the road and I don't blame him but then nobody shook me for any donations.

He could be a biting at times. I recall showing him a catalog from an artist-sponsored artist-curated touring art show that I was in that was on sale at City Lights called "San Francisco Science Fiction". Ted reacted strangely and asked "Don't you know that science fiction is fascism?" I think he was repulsed by the dystopian images of technological society in it by artists like Survival Research Labratories. The intent with such works was dissent and rejection of this nightmarish vision but it wasn't always clear to the observer I suppose just as I wonder if it is always clear to the artists involved.

I recall Ted sending a postcard to Ferlinghetti perhaps in response to a submission or verbal book proposal. The postcard blasted the poet/editor and challenged him to publish a great black poet while he still could. Of course, Ferlinghetti will outlive us all.

Years later seeing Ted when I was at NYU in 1994 for the big Beat Generation Conference where I spoke about the recordings by Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac that I was working with Rhino Records to rerelease in the 1990s.

("I know a man who's neither white nor black/and his name is Jack Kerouac"--Ted Joans)

I had just finished my hour plus talk with tapes and the whole conference had convened in the big auditorium for the first panel with Ginsberg and Ann Charters the two co-chairs of this academic-media spectacle. The panelists spoke and opened it up to questions from the audience. Soon a guy asked to take the stage microphone to make a statement and he was invited to do so. He launched in a complaint that the Black contribution to the Beat Generation was being ignored at this conference (although papers had been delivered on Bob Kaufman). "Why wasn't Ted Joans invited?" he asked stating that it would be valuable to hear from this founder of the movement. I had spotted Ted sitting a few rows behind me and at this point I stood up and said, "Why don't we ask Ted what he thinks?"

Ted rose somewhat shyly--he was never a trouble-maker, really-- and said so softly that it had to be repeated by some l ouder voice for the room to hear it, "I'm the Crispus Attucks of the Beat Generation." Then he calmly sat down again. I'm not certain of the spelling of his name at the moment but Crispus Attucks was an early participant in the American Revolution who was African-American. I believe he was killed early in the war and despite this heroic singularity is very seldom remembered in the historical accounts.One can easily see the parallels to Ted's role in the Beat revolution and his relative obscurity in the proliferating accounts of the period.

Anyroad an attempt to remedy this was devised by the end of the conference and an ad hoc panel was added that included Ted, the woman who spoke on Bob Kaufman, and the guy who had complained (perhaps indicating his original motivation in complaining.) Cecil Taylor had also always been scheduled to participate in the conference and he spoke and read poetry in his inspired style a few days earlier.

AS the whole thing wound do wn I stood in the back of the emptying auditorium with Ted and photographer Chris Felver as Ted exhorted him to take pictures of police on horseback getting into formation below for some unknown reason--no ostensible protest or popular uprisings were going on. It was an appropriate chuckle to end a puffed-up academic conference on the Beats we all seemed to agree.

So it was one of the last I saw Ted until that reading talk at UC Berkeley which was fecund and ended with a cordial spread of victuals laid out. What a blast whenever he was around.

"You are not a butterfly/you are a flutter by" - Ted Joans

All of Ted Joans and No More!

Here are 10 items by Ted from my bookshelf:

1. All of Ted Joans and No More. NYC: Excelsior Press, 1961.

2.Black Pow Wow, Jazz Poems. NYC: Hill and Wang, 1969.

3. Afrodisia. Hill and Wang, 1970. (Signed 1980--that's when I met him! At the SF International Poetry Festival)

4. A Black Manifesto in Poetry and Prose. London: Calder & Boyars, 1971.

5. Flying Piranha. Ted Joans & Joyce Mansour. NYC: Bola Press, 1978.

6. vergriffen; oder: blitzleib poems. Kassel, Germany: Loose Blatter Press, 1979.

7. Dies & Das. Berlin 1984. Ted edits his idea of a surrealist journal..

8. Double Trouble. Ted Joans and Leroy Hart Bibbs. Revue Noir/Editions Bleu Outremer, 1992.

9. WOW. with drawings of Ted by Laura. Quicksilver/Quartermoon Press, 1999.

10. Lost & Found: "In Thursday Sane". UC Davis, Swan Scythe Press, 2001. This last one an amazing production reproducing pages from a copy of Amos Tutuola's Palm Wine Drinkard that was found in a used bookstore. It contains a poem in Ted's hand,a drawing by him and his ownership stamp. All reproduced in color.

Michael Kaufman:

Haiku for Ted Joans

Poet of my youth.
In The Village of my mind
you live forever.

Kenya Rodriguez:

What to say about such an extraordinary creature. A true artist, poet, musician. I am privileged to work with his son, Robert Jones Sr. He is just as eccentric, creative and headstrong as his father. TED JOANS truly lives!!!! This tribute certainly captives his amazing life and contribution to a society he refused to be a part of. Thank You TED

Harry Nudel:

  I must have  1st met Ted
in the Summer of '79. I was selling
books on Soho-St...he came by & i 
gave him a copy of my book...2 hrs
later he was back "you WROTE this?"

  We hit it off. Ted who always
needed a place to stay, lived with
me for 3 weeks..he was the perfect
houseguest..as if he was a pro..
somewhere there's a picture he
took of ladder, cat, book, me
& Jess..my then 8 yr old..

   Once he brought up two
gorgeous black Philly School
Teachers..Ted could charm the
snake...towel naked apres
les bain...i had to mention
i was married..tojours regret..

   Once we went to a po-reading
at the Old West-End..i priggishly
insisted Ted pay the 2 buck
cover.."to support the art"
Ted of no bread...the later
Ted of "No Bread No Ted".. pd
up...

   In a copy of Flying Pyrana
he wrote "good morning
           Harry
          How do you do?
          This is your surrealist
          black brother
          presenting
          this to you..
          30/July/79

   That summer I must have
been in lv with some one..
from a poem i gave Ted & which
he returned to me...10 yrs
later..surrealcastaway
   
    ALL SORTS OF 3rd St. Love

    I'd even give up
    Sleeping with you
    To be yr friend
       ...
    'Love' the cockroach
    After you kill 'em
       ...
     No names 
        please
     Mr. Sweetness/
     Miss Light
      ...
     horny
       is
       as..

   2 yrs later..he gave
me & A...a cupcake and 
one of his books, What Else?
as a present for our formal
wedding...

    May 15 1981 4:30 PM
     Cuntgragulations
     on your new 
     true day
         (of marital
          bliss
     So cock-a-doodle-do
     to two of you

          with Afrodisia

             Love
          Ted Joans & Alicia..

          (N.B...the last name)

   Paris...1983 in a copy of
     "sure, really I, IS"
       
       To Harry in Paris
       1983 our Nesting
       Place amongst Palaces
                August
                Le Premier
                1983..


    Paris 1984..in a copy of
    "The Aardvark Watcher
     Der Erdferkelforscher"

         To Harry  in Paris
         where he walks and walks
                  Sept '84

     On a piece of my Stationery

        Ted Joans in Paris 1990
        First Phone Jim Haynes

        40 rue de la Montagne Ste. Genevieve..

        Write or leave Message

        Daily rendezvous at Cafe Le Roquet
        4-6PM

        188 Blvd Saint Germaine

        I sit on the left hand side of this cafe
        If you do not see me, ask the waiter


   In a copy of Jazz Museum Presents
     Ted Joans

         Il etait une fois poetry reading
         moi et toi Harry....avec amities
                may 19..'90

         (with drawing of 2 jazz figures)

    Afrodisia toujours..
    After i pick him and Laura
    up in my clunker car..
    lunch at Sylvia's and Langston's
    house..

        from his own Hipness Harry
        on Langston Hughes steps
        at 20 east 127th ST.
        Langston Hughes House
        with brother-love as
        Langston would have it..
          29/9/92


    '97...the beginning of the
    end..
        in a copy of Birth 3

     two Rhinoceri Drawings &
          
          to Harry Nudel (sic)
          who has yet to sell
          'our ticket that
           could explode"
           24/11/97..
  
    All over all Over
    over a
    book and an ASS...

    Ted and Laura
    dressed as Twin
    Teducations
    Walk on By..

    I send him anon
    some Rhino stamps..

    From Vancouver the 
    last letter 200..

    'so i shall take
    the chance on straightening
    out the crooked curve
    that cause wrinkles in
    our brows.."

    Ted, the lecon of the
    master...
    you steal from the past
    esp. you own
    & don't hustle the hustler...


    drn/drn...

Harry Nudel & Lori Reinstein:

FEAR
     FROM THE
POET
     BUT THE
TRUTH
  

Ted f...ed...a 1,0001
women including
Marilyn Monroe

Ted roomed with
Charlie Parker
when he died
& chalked
BIRD LIVES
all over the www

Ted & Paul Bowles
drinking turkish coffee
in Tangiers
when the ferry unloaded 
all these refugees...
the first time either
had seen hippies...

......
& from the other side of
the bed...


Ted
Red, white & blue

4th of July
Ted

Ted
Cairo Paris Timbuktoo
Restless, Peripatetic
now Galactic
Ted

("Be-at-ified"
We sighed)

Teducate
the stars
Ted...

Harry Nudel:

postscript:

don't know if the TRIBUTE is the right place for this...but thot i'd pass it on...

In the generic AP obit...& few others...there's mention that Ted was in the H.C. Portable Beat Reader...but excised from the p.b. of same...

As i remember getting the story from Ted..he was pissed at the let's leave nameless editors... for using his po...without $$$$ or permission.....no Bread...no Ted...Hy Shore sent a letter to the pub...& Ted was edited out of this beat scene...

In Kansas on the 2nd of long 4 day USA journey across... Greyhound bus trip...Ted is eating his ubiquotous peanutbuttersandwiches...& a vin rouge in paradise...for a few centimes more.....Harry.....

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