Theodore Joans (July 4, 1928 – April 25, 2003) was an American beatnik, surrealist,[1]painter, filmmaker, collageist,[2]jazz poet and jazz trumpeter who spent long periods of time in Paris[3] while also traveling through Africa. His complex body of work stands at the intersection of several avant-garde artistic streams. He was the author of more than 30 books of poetry, prose, and collage; among them Black Pow-Wow, Beat Funky Jazz Poems, Afrodisia, Jazz is Our Religion, Double Trouble, WOW and Teducation. In 2001 he was the recipient of Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Awards Lifetime Achievement Award.
Joans often satirized American middle-class values in poems such as Playmates. A strong and cruel humorous streak is apparent in his work when depicting the white bourgeoisie and their philistine attitudes, particularly around racial prejudice.[14] His poems and art often explored social/racial issues from the perspective of his experiences of a black minority member within a white majority society. During the early 1980s, he was a writer in residence in Berlin under the auspices of the DAAD (Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst) program. He also was a contributor of jazz essays and reviews to magazines such as Coda and Jazz Magazine. His autobiographical text Je Me Vois appeared in the Contemporary Authors Autobiographical Series, Volume 25, published by Gale Research.
His work has been included in numerous anthologies, including The Poetry of the Negro, 1746–1970 (1970), edited by Langston Hughes and Arna Bontemps (1970), A Broadside Treasury, edited by Gwendolyn Brooks (1971), and For Malcolm, edited by Dudley Randall and Margaret Taylor Goss Burroughs (1973).[15] More recent publications on Joans include the anthology Teducation and Our Thang, a collection of his poems and paintings by his friend Laura Corsiglia.
In the late 1990s Joans relocated from Europe to Seattle before moving to Vancouver, British Columbia, between travels, until his death. Joans died in Vancouver, due to complications from diabetes. He fathered 10 children: Daline Jones-Weber of San Leandro (named after Salvador Dalí),[12] Ted Jones of Santa Monica, Teresa Jordan of Whittier, JeanneMarie Jones of Rialto, Robert Jones of Long Beach, Lars Jones of Oslo, Norway, Thor Jones of Oslo, Norway, Russell Jones of Scotland, Sylvia Jones and Yvette Jones-Johnson.[16]
Published works
Funky Jazz Poems (1959), New York: Rhino Review.
Beat Poems (1959), New York: Deretchink.
All of Ted Joans and No More (1961), with collages by the author, New York: Excelsior Press.
The Truth (1960)
The Hipsters with collages by the author (1961), New York: Corinth.
Amor Kohli, "Sounding Across the City: Ted Joans’s Bird Lives! as Jazz Performance", in Beat Drama: Playwrights and Performances of the "Howl" Generation, Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2016.
Jazz is Our Religion on YouTube (1971), directed by John Jeremy with the photographs of Val Wilmer. Features Ted Joans' voice reading one of his signature poems, "Jazz is My Religion".
From St. Louis to Dogon Country (1999) part of the BBC series Great Railway Journeys. directed by David Hickman, written by Danny Glover. Features Joans and Danny Glover, Clyde Taylor and others in Mali.
WOW! Ted Joans Lives! by Kurt Hemmer and Tom Knoff (2010). An homage to Ted Joans, featuring his reading at Harper College, Palatine, Illinois, in 2002.
"The Teducated Mouth", Ted Joans interview by John Barbato, Oaxaca (interview was conducted in November 2002 and originally published in Zocalo in summer 2003); in Empty Mirror magazine.
Karima Boudou, "Beauford Delaney and Ted Joans", Africanah: Arena for Contemporary African, African-American and Caribbean Art, April 28, 2018.
References
^[1] Jonathon Keats, "An Eye-Opening Met Exhibit Shows The Full Gamut Of Surrealist Art From Asia To Africa To North And South America"], Forbes, October 30, 2021