I was saddened to read in this morning’s paper that Beat poet Ted Joans had passed away at age 74. The sorrow vocalized spontaneously — “Oh…” — as happens when you realize abruptly that something irreversible has taken place, something which upsets the complex balance of your world in some immeasurable degree. And that you were not there in time to prevent its happening; could not have done so even if you had been there: bony death does not bargain with us softer, too-bruisable beings.

Ted died here: in Vancouver, in his small apartment on Chestnut Street. Far from his birthplace in Cairo, Illinois; at the end of a long road which had taken him through New York, San Francisco, Paris, Stockholm, Seattle, and Timbuktu, as well as uncountable points in-between.

I first met Ted in Paris; in 1980, it would have been. He was a regular visitor to Shakespeare & Company, the “rag and bone-shop of the heart” bookstore where I was staying at the time. He would arrive, usually, in the middle of the afternoons, when the pavement outside the store was crowded with book-browsers, heads tilted 90 degrees as they scanned the fresh-air bargain shelves. Ted would come into the shop — loudly; I remember his entrances being loud ones — and would glad-hand me or whoever else was tending store. “Hey man, good to see you!” The slap of palms.

If ever anyone deserved to be called a “hep cat” it was Ted Joans. Black beret, a close beard of tight curlicues, greying even then. A satchel of some sort slung over one shoulder, packed with papers, notebooks, pens. Self-sufficient: all a writer’s tools on hand. He seemed on top, then, at least to my admiring eyes. Living in Paris, for one thing, writing poetry; and always there was a young woman or two in tow: they seemed drawn to him like iron to a magnet.

To me, of course, then still in thrall to Kerouac’s On the Road, Ted Joans was royalty. He had known the Beats, man! Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso… And not just known them, he had been one of them! Greenwich Village, MacDougal Street, the 50’s: you couldn’t get more “hep” than that…

Ted’s eyes had an intense sparkle in them; and he had energy, energy to burn. He lived, at that time, in an apartment in the Marais district in Paris, but rumor had it that he spent his winters down in Timbuktu, and when I first learned this I instantly recognized that it was the only proper place a poet could wait out the colder months: this mythical location which everyone had heard about, but which most just thought of as the end of some dusty road: the last place they would go. Well Ted had been there. And had probably sucked the marrow from it, too.

Once he’d done his meet and greet at Shakespeare & Company, Ted would take up his usual post out in front. Beside the bookshelves, leaf-shaded, were a couple of creaky chairs set up by George Whitman, the bookstore’s owner, so that regulars could sit and chat a while. No doubt George thought that these lent a bohemian air to the establishment. If a chair was free, that’s where Ted would situate himself. Notre Dame would be visible through the trees along the Seine, and a constant stream of tourists would make their slow parade along the cobbled street. And in the midst of this, Ted Joans would pass an hour or two of his afternoon; that small patch of pavement had been transformed into his private sidewalk study. He would sort through his mail, reading or answering letters; he would greet those who’d come by because they knew where to find him on such an afternoon. Or he’d be leafing through that day’s edition of the International Herald Tribune. This he would no doubt have cadged from someone met earlier that same morning; because poets are perpetually short of funds, and poets in Paris, whether they be Beat luminaries or not, are no different in this regard…

Seven years later I was in Paris again for an extended stay, and Ted was still in residence, still a regular at Shakespeare & Company. I knew him, then, a little bit, but no more than dozens of others who had fallen into his orbit. Each year Ted held a birthday party for himself; it was one certain way to have the occasion celebrated. Invitations were liberally distributed — I still have mine tucked away. (I remember this as the party to which I’d brought one woman, but had taken home another. But that’s another story for another day…)

Gifts were encouraged at Ted’s birthday parties (the invitation made it clear: “You are invited / to be present / with a present at a present / giving affair”). Our gift was to be a co-written poem, and a small vial of Pustefix bubble mixture to add poetic flair. I remember that the two of us spent hours beside the Seine pondering the scansion of our poem: the effrontery we had to present a poem as gift to such an honored poet! I remember that there were subtle internal references to one of Ted’s own poems, and was convinced that his keen eye would spot them, and that he would take this as a much higher honour, a better gift, than something as crass and commonplace as a book, for example, or a bottle of good, red wine. He thanked us both, of course, but not with quite the enthusiasm that we had so naively imagined. Coals to Newcastle…

Ted was rightfully counted as a full member of the Beat Generation, but he’d never received the same degree of recognition as the more famous of his peers. His heyday was long behind him by the time we met in Paris those many years ago. But when the Beat Generation was at its peak (Life magazine sending a reporter and photographer to a “Beatnik” party in Greenwich Village; Jack Kerouac reading from On the Road on Steve Allen’s TV show) Ted had been right there in the thick of things. It was he who had come up with the brilliant skewering of the squares’ nostalgie de la boue fascination with all things bohemian, when he’d placed a newspaper ad that offered “Rent-A-Beatnik” services for parties.

Ted had ridden that Beat wave as long as he could, and then he had gracefully traveled down his own road. The road had taken him to Paris, Africa, Seattle. And then finally to Vancouver. So do the (almost) famous fall from the public eye.

Although he had experienced a small renaissance in recent years (2 books of poetry published: Our Thang and Teducation in 2001 and 1999 respectively) much of what Ted wrote has long been unavailable. Of all that work — the work of a lifetime, now — there are a number of good poems that will be remembered by those who hallow all Beat writers. But there is perhaps just one poem of Ted’s which will live on before a more general audience. But one such poem is more than most poets will ever leave behind.

The Truth

If you should see
a man walking
down a crowded street
talking aloud
to himself
don’t run
in the opposite direction
but run toward him
for he is a POET!

You have NOTHING to fear
from the poet
but the TRUTH

Legend has it that, when sax great Charlie Parker died in 1955, Ted Joans had gone out that same night and written “Bird Lives!” in chalk on streets and sidewalks all over New York City. In honour of that act, and in celebration of Ted Joans’ life in poetry, we should do no less tonight. So grab a chunk of sidewalk chalk and write “Ted Joans Lives!” everywhere you can…

Update: A collection of tributes to Ted Joans here.