Ted Joans

TED JOANS

photo copyright Larry Keenan
The photo was taken in 1995 at the "Beat Culture and the New America: 1950-1965" exhibit at San Francisco's de Young Museum. Ted Joans' painting "Bird Lives" was included in the exhibition and is owned by the de Young.

Obituaries & Biographies:

Earshot Jazz June newsletter, in PDF format
The Guardian
The Stranger (Seattle)
National Post
Vancouver Sun
Village Voice
San Francisco Chronicle
MSNBC
BBC
Tri-Valley Herald
AP / ABC News. The AP story has been picked up by dozens of news outlets.
New York Times
Globe & Mail
Ted Joans biography at Litkicks.

If you are aware of other obituaries, biographies, or Joans-related articles, please email Denise Enck.

Photographs:

TED JOANS LIVES! A TRIBUTE, located at Empty Mirror Books, includes many photographs of Ted.

Ted Joans, 1999, Seattle, photo by Bernie Mindich

Poet, musician, and artist Ted Joans passed away on April 25 in his home in Vancouver, B.C, at the age of 74.

Tributes & Celebrations:

TED JOANS LIVES! A TRIBUTE is found at Empty Mirror Books.

A tribute to Ted Joans & Bob Kaufman will take place at the Bowery Poetry Club in NYC on June 29, 2003 at 7pm.

A celebration of Ted Joans' life took place in Vancouver B.C. on Wednesday, May 14.

The Isis Gallery in Seattle hosted an evening in remembrance of Ted on June 6, 2003.

Al Aronwitz & others remember Ted Joans at The Blacklisted Journalist.

Ted Joans tribute at Milk Magazine

Website:

Ted Joans & Laura Corsiglia's own website includes reviews, audio files, information about some of the books, and photos of many of them. The website was in progress at the time of Ted's death; some pages are incomplete...

Books:

Click here to see Ted Joans' books for sale at Empty Mirror Books.

Photos of & information about some of Ted Joans' books on his own website.
In Thursday Sane was published by Swan Scythe Press.
"Teducation" and "WOW," reviewed by Jack Foley, were published in 1999.

Ted Joans' poems on the web:

Skip the Byuppie
Jazz Must Be A Woman
The Sax Bit
My Ace of Spades

Archival Collections:

Article on the Ted Joans archive at UC Berkeley's Bancroft Library.
Charles Henri Ford letters to Ted Joans at University of Delaware.

Audio:

Audio file of Ted Joans reading at University of California, Berkeley on February 1, 2000, on the occasion of Langston Hughes' birthday. Ishmael Reed introduces Ted for a little over eight minutes, then Ted reminisces about Langston Hughes, reads a few of Hughes' poems, and a number of his own.

NPR ran a terrific story on Ted Joans, on the day he was given the American Book Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Other Webpages About Ted Joans:

Photos & links at Recollection Books, a Seattle bookstore.
Arthur W. Wang, publisher (Hill & Wang), discusses Ted Joans.
Beatnet.de, German Beat site offers links & a terrific photo of Ted taken in 1980.
This 1997 article in the Seattle Times mentions Ted.

... I was living in the Beat Hotel in Paris and a friend of mine 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 photo I took of him while he was staying in the Hotel Stella in July 1966. — Harold Chapman

Ted Joans, Paris 1966 photo by Harold Chapman

photo copyright Michael Kellner
This was taken March 1981 at the Amerikahaus in Hamburg, where Ted gave a lecture. They were published only once in the second edition of "Blitzliebe Poems", then called "Mehr Blitzliebe Poems." — Michael Kellner