Spadework

2

To Langston Hughes

20 East 127 st

from: tedjoans Rue de la Seine #6

Tanger Maroc

Here and living. Here and eating. Here and smoking. Hemingway, I live in those green hills of Africa. Whitman, I smoke those leaves of grass. Here and painting. Here and fucking. I ride toward you Tangiers. I ride with hippies than thou books/& records of jazz/of poetry/Of wisdom. I ride to the Brooklyn docks in a Cadillac hearse...BLACK! I armed with two Swiss guards ride toward you Tangier in a huge moving van over rough Brooklyn thirdavenue under elevated thruway. I make my getaway when boat leaves day late. Goodbye my lady with the French lamp in upraised hand with arm to support liberty light that America doesn't really have eyes for...at this time in history. I rock and roll on rough ocean toward new...you...Tangier. I see and promise. I blow jazz into Yugoslav ocean going ears. I blow my way across the Atlantic and Arione. I have been doubled-a-cross by you Bronx Bagel baby and you too Nevada, Montana or just plain Farwest bagel baby of brother-in-arts with me. I blew Xmas blues at 23rd December ocean party. I get sick and I shit. I get laid and I split. I kneel and touch the African ground. I dig those Moroccan heads...all round. I listen to those Moorish music sounds. I eye the veiled women that past and stare. I follow those unveiled women that don't care. Cafe Paris and Cafe Bohemia I sit and sip. Mint tea for you and Kikif for me. Alto sax from Brooklynland. He and me form a Tangerine Two band. Sherah opposite of Sarah. Being hustled by the hustled. Minor Maumau Marc. The Moor bore Benny, who never produced his super promises ANY! Fleas for few. Hipsters palace G.A. All night. Wander through the narrowest streets in the world...Casbah. Berber broads lifting. Berber broads carrying babies and huge camellike loads. To the Medina and back. To the Petite Sokko and El Sokko Grande. Daily doses of different languages. Double deals in different do-re-me's. Prices up and down. Yacoubi. Yacoubi. Yacoubi. Ah yes Yacoubi! Paint and think. Djellabah and Beboushes. Its a cinch when its French. Half finished if its Spanish. Very hard man if its American man! Beatniks from the West. Avoid'em! Doing my damn best! Away in work pad. Dad! I ain't doing too-bad. Virgin bed. New Year centre-de-ville trumpet. Paul Bowles. Paul Bowles. Oh yes Mr. Bowles! No news from old New York. Fine and dandy Tangier. Fine and dirty Timbuktu. Fine and spiritual Tombouctou. Faraway Joyce ex-wife. Faraway Joan too. Faraway Maureen and faraway Sylvia. Faway this chick, and that one that I didn't lay from Jersey. Faway you and faraway your bit. Faraway money. Faway mother and faraway live jazz. Faraway racial bigots. Faraway vicousness.

*new lebanese hashish*

3

Here all the spirits laugh, and they laugh at and with me.
Houses that smile at me. Trees that say hello. Women that flirt with their eyes.
men that kiss, snakes that dance, donkeys that braw and heehaw. police that salute.
rain that pours and hot sun that is shining. January sweat on the beach. Miles
dies in the dark of a brothel. Everybodies and the somebodies. Dogs bark
and roosters crow. Cages open and boats row. the wind blows in many different
directions in Tangier. Goats and cows slow my departure from workpad. Sand in
soup. at that bowl bottom. Whitmen shakers. black'n'brown whores. Angels and
heartbreakers. cool. cooler. Cold At Night. Africa. ? that's right! Horace Silver
discs breezing through Marrakesh made blankets. Hashish bound for the smokers,
Tourist buy donkey dug and camel turds. Hustlers real jokers. Moor whores that
hide in European rags. More artistic chores for me. I am just at the beginning.
This is my beginning and this is my ending. Africa, and I'm baking a sweet potato
pie, recipe cotton curtain U.S.A! I smile at the American Express. .what a nasty
mess. Africans changing fast and doing its damnest best. Charlie Parker sounds
coming from shanty bidonvilles. Berbers that dug and still dig that U.S Bop.
No rivers that knock on doors. Rent and utilities way below cost. Dine and go just
once high class. Everynight white dinner jacket or dirty bluejeans seane. Flea &
fly market. Algeria, that throw weight. Neutrals that sit, sip and wait. Aint nobody
moanin'. Everybody groaning for white him to get out of the way. The race of eternal
masochist. . .the Jews. Ubiquitous as veils. I live in a dream every moment. Life
is sweet. Creative urge all the time. Ideas flowing and new thoughts and positive
action point of veils growing. Tangier I live. Timbuktou I ghost. Dakar I gave.
And New York (my past) I boost. Yes Langston, I am here and here I hope to stay.

At this moment I knew we all must clear our eyes so that we
can recognize the future which is ours, and IT'S ABOUT TIME!!

ted joans

January 1962

tedjoans

born July 4th 1923 in Cairo Illinois USA

Died in America December 14th and was reborn

in Africa December 24th 1961.

P.S

Please understand 'cause you knows I got 'ligion!

Write to me - and please send me a
copy of the Chicago Defender mention

January 30, 1962

Ted:

Your letter to me went to Seymour Krim at NUGGET instead. But he sent it on to me. I am just back from Nigeria and have gone through a BIG pile of mail accumulated, but don't see any letter for him from you, so I reckon his got lost somewhere. Anyhow, I'm glad to hear from you, and your panorama of Tunisia makes me want to head that way right now. It sounds like the MONTAGE OF A DREAM REALIZED not deferred.

Nigeria's a boom or bust country---Lagos a big HOT tropical Chicago---lassez-faire at its most lassez--25 storey sky-scrapers going up above 25 folks in a 3 room slum house---air cooled Caddies with tea tables in them whizzing past 6 year old kids carrying twice their weight on their baby heads. Snakes under Parisian sofas. Quite a town! I stayed a month and had a few days in Paris on the way home.

Back to the deadlines again. If I ever get a dollar ahead of a dime, I might be over your way. If you change addresses, let me know. That NEW NEGRO POETS anthology might come out in DUE time. The African one they want to do first is about ready to go to press.

The DEFENDER, being on strike, hasn't paid me since August, so I've stopped writing for it. (Since they haven't even written me a note). Owe me for some 20 weeks, so I guess they're in difficulties.

I love my rino you gave me. I'll write more when I sort of get caught up.

RE-gards,

["P.S. Here is one of my Afrique", "P.S. Send all mail to Am.Exp.Bland Line\nBlvd Pasteur Tangier Morocco\nIf I am not here they always\nforward it to me.", "unfettered (unfettered)", "P.S. Here is one of my Afrique\n( unfettered )", "My new in laws saw your Black Nativity recently in Paris.Good Luck and good works.My new in laws saw your Black Nativity

9

January 23, 1963

CENTENNIAL!!!!!!

Mon cher Ted: BLACK NATIVITY In Paris has gone to my head, therefore MON CHER TED No, I didn't get any letter from Mali, but your two I did get are the most---especially the last one in 1962 before the one that came today 1963. And I read the John Wilcock piece in VILLAGE VOICE about the Gasbah and you and your charming wife. And more power to you, and CONGRATULATIONS and it sounds like to me you got plenty sense. ......Charlie Mingus has moved to Harlem---Lenox Terrace. And James Baldwin, who started out anti-racism, is now more left field (an profitably so) than Mohammed X. And Dinah Shore is featuring gospel singers on her TV show. Also singing it herself. Clara Ward signed for 38 weeks behind a circular bar at Las Vegas. (To give you a few Social Notes on the Arts)....... Sure, I'll send you some magazines and cullud papers, etc., but you know how long it takes anything to get anywhere by boat mail, so don't dispirite....You DID NOT enclose any Afrique Accidentale poem in your letter. Maybe that is why you unsealed it, to take it out. Anyhow, I inform you, for the record.....I opened the Emancipation Centennial programs at University of Michigan (see being good, I broke my oath to utter nary word) with this quote from Simple: "How we survived 100 years of freedom, I'll never know---except that we managed to make it through 200 years of slavery."......And I ended with the ASK YOUR MAMA bit about Mammy Eastland, Mammy Fawbus, Mammy Barnett, etc. Overflow audience and the students fell out, so maybe they'll invite me back for the next Centennial. Out of spite, I intend to live till then.....I have an African namesake named Langston Chuba Nweke, and a Harlem one named Langston Hughes Mickens....Is the little AfroNorwegian a boy or girl? Lemme know

My dear Mr. Hughes

I have been given by the God of the Goodthings (through my wife) a big almost nine pound baby boychild which we had to name **TOR LUMUMBA** in memory of the great Congo martyr and to really **show** the entire world that Lumumba 'Lives'. So now that he is here with us I have to work harder, in my arts to provide for him and my fantastic (strong) wife. Our bread has completely run out and I as an American can not gig here in Maroc. So I have started writing 'help' letters to every soul buddy and "Emptybright" that I have the address of. What my plan is, is to send to each person that sends me two ten dollar bills (for aid) I give them one of my small Afroamerican oils (that I created here). I should have my exhibit this spring and then I'll be financial ready to return to Timbuctu (for the fall and winter). No more Nor-Afr winters for me manigot cold this year! So down west Africa I go and I'll stay until warm weather each year. I haven't got any papers or old magazines of the culud world yet, but I have the faith and I keep praying to the God of the seas to wash them a shore soon. Really happy about my son and hope that he grows to be happy to be born an African American with a British Gibraltarean passport and a Moroccan and Mali address. WOW! This little cat is born hip and complicated!! Ross Barnett, Jr and his Mississippi mishaps wont know what to do about segregating him. But meanwhile I continue creatively working on this side for our segment of the USA. Hope you'll write and if you wish an oil by me just sound and off it will fly to you.

Surrealistically yours

a spade to be dug ted joans

P.S. see the

movie "All Night Long" its GREAT !!!!!

2-10-63 '9

April 30, 1963

Dear Ted:

Take this bread

but do not waste

sending oil by air.

No need for haste.

Ordinary old boat will do, as I will be in Europe any-
how, via freighter to Mediterranean which, if it comes to
Tangiers, might see you, toward end of June. I'll let you
know later when I get the ports-of-call list......DE-ligh-
TED to have your letters, the poem, and news of that mighty
SON. Nice going! Hope I can see him, and meet your lovely
sounding wife.....This has been a flu winter here (the kind
that comes back 3 times---and I had all 3) so I stand in
need of sunshine and sea air and someplace as hot as Tim-
buctoo.......My play MULATTO is in Madrid, BLACK NATIVITY in
Italy---one reason I'm coming over to see if they still re-
spect my lines.....I read about you in the VILLAGE VOICE.....
Which is the only way I know the Village is still there, as
I just about never get down that way.....Work, work WOOk---
try 30 years of living from nothing but writing and you will
see! Nothing but workwORkwOrK. I envy your rhinoceroses....
Magazine in bulk coming your way eventuallylylylyihope.
Meanwhile, a bientot,

Page two

that I could get some sort of financial philanthropal assistance
from some origination interested in an Afroamericanegrospade cat
who'd work, teach, talk, walk and create in Africa, PLEASE send me the
address. I need the assistance and a little help will bejust the broad
booster that I need. My big son TOR LUMUMBA is the talk of the
Tangier scene. He is the most active and youngest AfroNorwegianamerican
in Africa. He loves the sunshine and orange juice. Watermelons just now
making the scene and they look like the Georgia kind. Peace Corp cats
and chicks bring us peanut butter, brown sugar and toilet tissue in
exchange for my drawings and my hospitality. Most of them are from
downhome but interested in learning to live democratically. My poem
Afrique Accidentale has been published in full in The City Lights
Journal, but aint recieved no bread for it yet. So if you visit 8th St
Bookshop pickup a copy. Enclosed is a catalog from my show and a bit
on Mississippi by my friend Tuli Kupferberg. This is really a suspense
scene for me. I have never been broke abroad with a broad and a child.
But that's their way my position is. Yet I know the suns gonna shine in
my back door during those six exhibiting days. Bread will roll in, I
pray. But please send me any kind of advice, that you can, concerning
aid. Oh yeah, dig, did Mr Bontemps ever put out that anthology?? If so
why didn't I get a copy, I sent him everything that he asked for. Oh
well man, until after the exhibit. I hope to read your poems as I
heard you read them and do Jesus, Tell Them All Like It damn show IS!

Please write

and again thank you for the
culd things you send

your soulbuddy over yonder tedjoans

P.S.

4th of July

I - B - 35 years young

April 18, 1964

Mr. Ted Joans
American Express Co.
Damak 66
Amsterdam, Holland

Dear Ted:

Arna Bontemps is in New York this week-
end and has given me your address. I am glad
to have news of you from him. I hope that
things are going better with you.

Financially, I have had a rather rough
winter since BLACK NATIVITY closed owing me
for the last few weeks in London and for
several weeks of the American tour in all
for several thousand dollars which I have
been unable to collect and, as you probably
know, my Broadway show TAMBOURINES TO GLORY
was not a success and I have received no
royalty statements or checks from it at all
since it closed. So, I am at the moment
somewhat broke myself.

I hope that you in the land of wonderful
chocolates and wonderful food are faring a
bit better than I. I wish you were here to
see my play JERICO-JIM CROW off-Broadway. It
is a success--of course it would be in a theat
off-Broadway where one makes almost no money.
It seems that I am not able to get a Broadway
hit, but maybe I will live long enough to do
sometime in the distant future before the
millennium itself arrives. How is your wife
and your wonderful baby? I send you most cord
regards as ever.

Sincerely,

LH:r

Langston Hughes

DE-LIGHT-ED to get your letter today, as I'a post-ed duplicates of these forms to you at 2 other addresses, hoping you might get one somewhere, not having heard hair or hide of you for months!...If you get this safely, sign and send you the bread for the poem abably can sue it....When is the or June? (Moroc consulate here is not sure, in fact, don't know). I'll be in Europe in May, so might fly down for it, so I'MME know, please sirm, also where you'll be May and/or June.....I'm late, February 26, 1965 gotta rush downtown. So, hastily, but Sincerely, till next time--------

Dear Poet or Publisher:

I have been asked to compile an anthology of American Negro poetry to be published in French by Editions Seghers in Paris under the title of ANTHOLOGIE DE LA POESIE NEGRO-AMERICAINE: 1770-1965. Inclusion of representative poets from Phyllis Wheatley to the most interesting of our younger writers today will, I hope, make this anthology a new, rich and stimulating experience for readers abroad. I would very much like your permission to include the poems listed below. If you do not control the rights, please be so kind as to pass this communication on to the person or publisher who does. Editions Seghers will of course give appropriate credit, if you will indicate below how you would like that credit to read. Since the anthology will be a small but attractively made book published at the lowest possible price so as to reach a wide overseas market (including students) the budget is necessarily limited. But if you will grant Editions Seghers permission for the use of your poetry therein (leaving you free of course to publish it elsewhere as you wish) you will be paid on publication date the sum of $12.00 and two copies of the anthology will be sent you.

I would very much appreciate your prompt attention to this matter by the return to me soon of the form below.

Poetry:

Mr. Langston Hughes
20 East 127th Street
New York, N. Y. 10035

Dear Mr. Hughes:

I control the rights to

which I understand you wish to include in your ANTHOLOGIE DE LA POESIE AMERICAINE to be published by Editions Seghers, Paris. I hereby grant you permission to include this material to be translated into French, the credits to read as follows:

and for which I will accept the fee you offer. This permission covers distribution in France and the French-speaking market throughout the world.

Sincerely,

23

(Copy also sent to Amsterdam %a.E.)

LANGSTON HUGHES

30 EAST 127TH STREET
NEW YORK 35, N. Y.

February 26, 1965

Dear Poet or Publisher:

Poetry:

Ted Joans

IT IS TIME

Ted: Let me know how and where you are, please?

Dear Mr. Hughes:

I control the rights to *It Is Time*

Sincerely,

Check sent
Feb. 15, 1966
to Poets.

LANGSTON HUGHES

February 26, 1965

Dear Poet or Publisher:

Poetry:
Ted Joans

IT IS TIME

Ted: Where and how are you? And what is your address?

Dear Mr. Hughes:

I control the rights to IT IS TIME

Sincerely,

March 15, 1966

Dear Ted:

I'll see you in Dakar. Right now terribly RUSHED and have to go downtown this moment in search of passport pictures, visas, vacination, shots, etc., so forgive this short note. All your BEAUTIFUL poems and things arrived safely. Write me BEFORE March 22nd and let me know if this enclosure reached you safely. I'll be in Dakar from March 28th to April 24th, then East Africa.

Hastily but sincerely,

32

January 24, 1967

Dear Ted:

I just sent you a Nilsfert to
Tangiers, so I hope they are forwarding
your mail from there.

Anyhow, nice to get your long
letter and new poems. And thanks for
the Morocco addresses. I reckon you
don't know just when the Folk Festival
is????? Nobody ever does. But I'd like
to make it this Spring if I can, either
before or after Paris. My SIMPLE book
out
comes/in Paris in March, so look for it
if you get there before I do.

No, I haven't been in touch with

JET. Drop them a line your own self:
Mr. Allan Morrison
Johnson Publishing Co.,
EBONY--JET,
1270 Sixth Avenue,
New York, N. Y. 10020, USA.

Or: Charles Sanders, 38 Avenue George V,
Paris 8e, FRANCE,
Since you can tell them the latest toujours
Right now I have the flu.

Best ever,

Dear Langston

First of all, thanks, many thanks for the surprising letters that awaited me in Tanger when I came up last March. I stayed in Spain awhile, at Torremolinos blowing my trpt & reading & writing waiting for it to get warmer in Paris. Then I came up to Paris April 15th. Organized a Black Power Poetry bit and it drew a large crowd. Because I had Abbey Lincoln as the guest and Leroi Bibbs. The latter is a great black poet from Kansas City blows his things like Charlie Parker or Lester Young. We had a ball! I then came up here to Holland. Here, I am doing what Chester Himes told me to do and that was write my traveling experiences. He, I encountered in Spain. Been busy. Dig man, did you use anything of mine in your Afroamerican poems anthology for Russia?? If so, do send me a copy. Ran across wonderful book on black jazz of the old days by some German poet and another book on the BLUES. Both were well done. I hope to get a book of poems out this year. Charles Henri Ford offered me the assistance of his own agent. That is what I need. You have been just marvelous. He helping me. I want to thank you again. I still listen to that tape of the session we had last 4th of July in Paris. Will you be in Paris soon. I am doing a black bit at the American Artist & Student Center 261 Blvd Raspail Weds June 7th at 8:30. Hope you can make it. I plan to swing!! Been writing things on the new jazz musicians. Ran across several back issues of Liberator. Wow I dig this magazine "there is more in Langston Hughes for us than Hemingway" Yeah, that is nothing but the truth for me and all others that are hip to what is really happening. This C.H. Fuller writes good black powerful thoughts. I dig him. Africa was as usual a great influence on me. Especially after hitchhiking across the Sahara. I did write to Alain Morrison but I don't believe that he even mentioned my (individual surrealist) journey across that vast piece of land. In the Ivory Coast I landed a gif at the Hotel Ivory which is going to open a jazz club. They want me to bring a group in. Getting an all Afroamerican jazz group to go to Africa for six months, all expenses paid, fare there and back, plus a bonus, would seem easy. But it AINT!! Man there aint no black musicians here that want to travel that far for the bread that is offered & definitively NOT for six months. But I'll keep trying to find some soul brothers. I got a lot a modk and fetishes. I stayed with a cheif Duc Fisher in Upper Volta. He gave me grigris & still wearing it. Write to me about where I can get it.

AEROGRAMME
LUCHTPOSTBLAD

International
Toeristisch Jaar

IOTTERDAM

1967

Mr. LANGSTON HUGHES
20 BEEF east 127th St
New York City 10035
New York
U.S.A.

PAR AVION/PER LUCHTPOST

RUIM

A-CLITKLEP

RUIMTE VOOR SLUITKLEP

OUVRIR ICI / HIER OPENEN

I go to Norway after Paris to see my big boys.

Write to at Am Ex Co Meent 92 Rotterdam
Holland

dear mentor and guide

( and sole USA soul brother )

His Hipness Hughes

it has been a long long time since that I sat down and really wailed a
letter to you. I think I write to make up for lost time or last
time. Was it Tunis or Algeria perhaps it was during the lull at Colomb
Bechar infested with the ubiquitous camouflaged uniforms of young
Moroccan and Algerian soldiers. Smoking kif with eachother, dancing with
each other and at the hottest part of the day buggering each other.
These same soldiers were just a few months ago fighting a war against
each other. But now it is all over and they enjoy the cease fires.
Well I thank you for including my poems in your anthology and I do
in deed thank you for the check and the prompt delivery of a copy.

This statement can not be said for Herr Bontemps & co. They
havent sent me a book, nor check, and nor instructions to obtain it.

But he did send me two five dollar bills and a book jacket and
also a newspaper reveiw lauding my poem. Speaking of lauding,
Time magazine didn't dig my humonous protest piece IT IS TIME.
Fuck Time Magazine, they cant win us all...even though they got James
Baldwin in the righthand back pocket and Leroi Jones seems to be
in their left hand back(or front) pocket. But what Time magazine do
dosent know is that Leroi really does HATE the white U.S.A of
past, tomorrow and today. Whereas Baldwin just says it to make good a
copy. After all Leroi is still the sec. general of the Fair Play
for Cuba committee and is very very intelligent: Leroi is
no fool and cant no white man buy Leroi not even in the field
of jazz criticism. I wish I could dig his Dutchman. My SPADEWORK
is still in my possession after it was returned from Olympia.

Olympia is no more and so I must find a nother publisher of un-
usual honest pornography with obcenity overtones due to the gory
interracial homo & hetro & a some mo sex bits throughout the true
story of surreality. Surrealism has got a new devotee ...namely ME.
Got a nice write up in their surrealist magazine BRECHE. Also a bit

Page Two

in Arts Spectacles. Hope they can help me. For it is not only what the surrealist can do to me, it is what they (surrealist) can do for me and I know what I can do for surrealism. Langston man, I sometimes wish that I was back in the USA making money, buying books and jazz sides. But I am mentally comfortable here. I miss the great culture movements and the racial war being won. I feel left out and some times I feel that I am shucking, by staying on the safeside of the Atlantic. But I still work and prepare myself for the return. I must come back and bring Tor Lumumba (not Patrice as mentioned in your bio). The US Consulat in Morocco didn't dig his name and held up his US passport. The MF, s. But someday we are a coming. Ted Wilentz of the 8th St Bookshop is still my book contact man he sends me all kinds of goodies. I hope to be in Kenya or Tanganyika by first of winter with my family. Here in Norway there is plenty of peace and quiet. But for brea each weekend I read jazz poetry in Copenhagen and soon I gig in Stockholm. Those Swedes I do not dig. I feel they are similar to Mississippians in opposite ways. They just wont leave me alone. There is no privacy for a colored man in Sweden. Many many A-Trainers here are in a pink-blonde heaven. Dumb cats with dumb chicks. I have my wife and my son and I do not need the stupid Swedes to do anything for me but stay out of my kinky hair. They have a bad habit of rubbing a Spade head. Little do they know that All Gods Spade got long sharp protective blades. That poem was in Rodey Pool's anthology I finally met her in Amsterdam. Great woman dedicated to the Negro and one who understands the Negro(?) problem. Too bad that I do not have a problem it is the white man that has the problem not the Spade Hipsters. My mother lives in Ft Wayne Indiana and so that is where I shall return when I ever return with of course a round trip ticket. Harlem is on my visit list. Funny thing about it Langston. I have very few Harlem addresses. Greece almost killed me. Never again shall I tread there. Stop Goldwater before he pollutes goodwater. Stop him by requesting all the sharpshooting nuts of America to fire at once..target BARRY GOLDWATER: USA HITLER.

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