Ted Joans

Ted Joans (1928-2003) was born in Cairo, Illinois and became a world traveler, a painter, and a trumpet player as well as a jazz poet. Andre Breton, a founder of the American surrealist movement, called him the only Afro-American surrealist. Langston Hughes, whose poetry Joans first read at the age of ten, became his mentor and friend. Joans was a prolific writer who published over 30 books of poetry, including Afrodisia, Okapi Passion, Teducation, and Our Thang. He received an American Book Awards Lifetime Achievement Award.