TED JOANS LIVES! A Tribute, Page 8

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Ted Joans Lives! Online Tribute, Books & Resources

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.

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 muisc by Charlie Parker, Coleman Hawkins and Prez.
The license plate on my car reads: BRDLVS
Thanks Ted
Always Know,
Steve Schwartz

Mark Fisher:

I met Ted Joans several years ago at the NYU Beat Conference. He was standing by himself in a crowded room, a small coffin in his arms. "What's in the coffin?" I asked. "Poetry," he smiled.

eeglazer:

It never entered my mind that Ted would leave us like he did or how much his passing would hurt. I met Ted in the summer of 1995 while I was living in Paris. He clued me into both the poetry and social scene there (most importantly, the Sunday dinners at Jim Haynes where I made many good friends and acquaintance). If I had not met Ted I probably would not have stayed in Paris longer than that summer. He was a profoundly good friend and mentor to me. He will be missed but he will not be forgotten.

The Unknown Beat

12 May 2002

If you didn't know
The unknown beat
You missed the beat
Ted's beat
Ted's bag
Ted's truth
A lucky few
Have been teducated
Through his jazz lips
That trumpeted the truth
Of the beat

The beat that would not
Be beaten
The beat that would
Beat back
The beat that would not
Be berated
The beat that would
Be T rated
For Ted
Trumpets
Timbuktu
                Two words
                Teducation
                Truth
And most importantly
Aardvarks
Giraffes
Rhinos
And Bird
                (in the singular sax tense)

Ted walked the beat
Crayon in hand
Slappy* in hand
Laura in hand
Heart
Soul
Picturing poetry
Poeting pictures
On the LauraTed Slappy Show

Ted's café classes
Taught the rhythm
Of the unknown beat
The melody
Of surrealism
The truth
Of teducation

This is Tedicated**
To the truth of the beat
That moves my shoes
C'est vrai

And stop buying those damn cigarettes

 

* "Slappy" was Ted's very old movie camera that needed the occasional slap to get it going.
** Many thanks to my father Mark Glazer for suggesting "Tedicated"

Rik Lina:

Here is the funeral ad. in the Dutch paper, signed by his artist-friends living in The Netherlands.

Harold Chapman:

... I was living in the Beat Hotel in Paris and a friend of mine, Thomas Neurath, had just taken a room there. He asked me in to see a mural on the wall. Graven into the plaster, covering one entire wall of the room, was a drawing... It was titled and signed "The chick that fell off a rhino, Ted Joans"... I met Ted by chance a few years later in the street... below are the first few photos I took of him while he was staying in the Hotel Stella in July 1966.

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)

Denise Enck:

I've been writing a piece about Ted and will post it here in a few days. But this this morning while looking through a cache of letters, postcards, and ephemera Ted sent me over the years, I found this recent item which I thought I'd share with you now.

Getting mail from Ted was always a treat. His newsy letters were often embellished with drawings, or rubber stamps; sometimes he'd include clippings or other ephemera. No matter their appearance, they were always full of Ted's wit & plenty of news.

For Christmas 2002 my husband Craig & I sent Ted & Laura a wine stopper. It was a blown-glass rhino atop a cork & was made in Africa. In early January I received Ted's marvelous thank you! He even incorporated the package's customs slip.

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