Ted Joans collection

1928-2003

Ted Joans was a painter, poet and trumpeter, member of the New York Greenwich Village literary Beat Generation. He was among the first to set his poems to jazz music. His style is associated with the oral tradition of African-American writing but also to the Beat Generation. Joans a self identified surrealist, was the author of over 30 books. Joans was born in 1928, Cairo, Ill. and died at the age of 74 in Vancouver. The Ted Joans collection consists mainly of correspondence and notes (1969-2003). The bulk of the material is between Hy Shore, Joans attorney, agent and friend, with a folder of material on Jim Haynes, a client and friend of Hy Shore and a key social figure in the expatriate community in Paris. Also included is the typescript for "The Hipsters" (1961), poems, sketches and cartoon style drawings (mostly on envelopes).