Ted Joans (1928-2003)
Ted Joans was one of three black poets associated with the Beat movement of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the other two being Bob Kaufman and Leroi Jones, as he was then known. But Joans was always his own man and though he never denied his links to the Beats he had a highly personal approach to both life and art and insisted that he be respected for that.
Joans was born in 1928 in Cairo, Illinois, reputedly on a riverboat, where his father worked as an entertainer. Pinning down accurate details of his early life isn’t easy, and there were suggestions that he was abandoned by his parents when he was twelve. But he did later attend Indiana University, graduating with a degree in Fine Arts, and moved to Greenwich Village, where he met Charlie Parker, Jack Kerouac, and many other musicians, writers, and artists. Joans played trumpet, though he never considered he was proficient enough to work professionally, and he was knowledgeable about art, surrealism in particular. When the Beats began to get attention following the publication of Howl and On The Road Joans joined in the general activity and was published in The Beat Scene, The Beats, and other influential publications.
In the 1960s he began to travel, moving through Europe and Africa, where he often spent time in Timbuktu. His other favourite location was Paris, a city he enjoyed because of its links to surrealism. I met him there and spent some time with him talking about a large Andre Breton exhibition then at the Pompidou Centre. I also came across him in Berlin when we both gave readings at a literary festival and listened to him reminisce about New York in the 1950s. He had a prickly side and didn’t suffer fools gladly but I always found him to be good company. We had a love of jazz in common and he liked that.
Joans published a great deal over the years and his poems were collected in several books, among them Black Pow Wow:Jazz Poems(1969) and Afrodisia(1970). For those keen to read his work but unable to find the earlier books the more recent Teducation:Selected Poems 1949-1999 (Coffee House Press, 1999) will give a good idea of the range of his writing. He was influenced by surrealism, jazz, and the black experience, and he believed that poetry was meant to be spoken aloud as well as read on the page.
In recent years he had lived in Vancouver and had continued to be active, though he suffered from diabetes. He died there on the 25th April, 2003.
Ted Joans will perhaps be mostly remembered for his association with the Beats but he had a wider approach to life and poetry than that label suggests. He’ll be missed.
Page(s) 2
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The