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!
Alex Gross & Ilene Astrahan:
My artist wife Ilene and I first met at a Ted Joans poetry reading in 1958. It was at the long gone Phoenix Gallery on Third Avenue near 9th St. Afterwards everyone including Ted ended up at a drunken party around the corner, where one guest passed out and was pulled by his legs around the large room, leaving a trail of moisture on the floor from his beer-soaked hair.
We kept running into Ted at various points after that, once when he was again reading his poetry downstairs in the lie-down theatre at London’s first Arts Lab ca. 1967 and a few times informally when he passed through NYC. I remember once hearing him tell me about his trip to Timbuktu in far greater detail than I was capable of understanding.
I had first got to know him two years earlier in 1956 at the original Cafe Figaro, where Ted, a poet-artist named Ed Dickman, the film maker Jud Yalkut, myself, and a whole cast of others used to hang out at one particular table for hours, encouraged to do so by owners Royce & Tom Ziegler in the hope that the atmosphere we provided would draw in the squares as customers. Of course we all wore berets. Occasionally we got lucky and ended up going home with the girls who were also drawn to our table. Ted seemed to be luckiest of all, perhaps because of the sign with his picture in the window. I can no longer remember exactly how it read, something like “Ted Joans, Poet / Available for Readings.”
Despite the black shirts we all wore, it was a fairly colorful time.
Ted, my wife of 44 years and I will both miss you.
Dennis Williams:
Not much story: Ted was a good friend of a couple and attended their wedding. He wrote and delivered a poem at the reception. I’ve heard a lot of poetasters give poems and weddings, but his poem and delivery were very moving. I later found out his reputation. I had informally arranged to do some photos of him, but he moved to Vancouver, B.C. before I got it done.
Steve Schwartz:
I only knew Ted Joans through his writing, particularly his jazz poetry. I have hosted a jazz radio program in Boston, “Jazz From Studio Four”, on WGBH, 89.7fm, for many years. Tonight, Sunday May 18th, 2003, I’ll read some of Ted’s works (Jazz Is My Religion; The Truth; Lester Young, etc.) and play some music by Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins and Prez.
The license plate on my car reads: BRDLVS
Thanks Ted
Always Know,
Steve Schwartz
George Csaba Koller:
A photo of Ted Joans
with the twinkle in his eye
standing in front of my bookstore
Black Sheep Books in Vancouver
with the lovely Tanya Evanson
and the word Poets behind them,
very appropriately
describing who they are
TED JOANS LIVES!
even though the store has closed
I’d like to add
Black Sheep Books lives!
in our hearts, like Ted
in our memories
in our Souls!
The highlight of my
poetic endeavors
was reading with Ted
Marc Creamore and Steve
Duncan, at the Allen
Ginsberg tribute in 2001
at Black Sheep Books
and after having read
Sunflower Sutra and
one of my own, called
To Become a Man
seeing the recognition
in Ted’s eyes:
“Ah, another fellow poet!”
I felt vindicated
after many years of scribbling
to be recognized as such
by such a Master poet
TED JOANS LIVES!
Love you, Ted
we’ll miss the twinkle in your eyes
but you’ll be twinkling
deep down in our Souls
and way up in our Hearts!
__________________________
I was proud to read the above
at the Celebration for Ted Joans
held at Bukowski’s Bistro
in Vancouver
on May 14th, 2003
(for the photo mentioned see Tanya Evanson’s message)
Billy Marshall Stoneking:
I never met TJ in the flesh, but we met many times…through his work…and my performances of his work, most notably “The .38,” which I performed all over Australia and a good part of the English-speaking world between the late 1970s right up until …this morning…at the Australian Film, Television & Radio School…where I work, disguised to myself as a screenwriting lecturer.
My version of “The .38” has frightened, astounded, devastated, provoked, and changed countless listeners who “never knew poetry could do something like that.” I am proud to be associated with it, proud of our “collaboration” – a collaboration that resulted in the poem being featured many times on Australian National Radio, as well as in three or four major “poetry plays”, from the Opera House to Montsalvat and all the way out to Uluru. I have often wondered what Ted must have thought every time he found a royalty cheque from Australia tucked in with the rest of his mail.
I knew (and know) many of the people and poets Ted counted as friends, and have heard so many anecdotes concerning him it’s almost like we did know one another. It came as a shock today – yes, only today – to discover he’s decided to sit this one out, or maybe he’s just decided to play something else for a while. Let’s play something, Ted. Let’s play anything you want!
Billy Marshall Stoneking
Editor – Performance Poetry