Charles Henri Ford letters to Ted Joans

Poet, artist, filmmaker, and editor, Charles Henri Ford was regarded as America's first surrealist poet.

Charles Henri Ford was born on February 10, 1908, in Hazelhurst, Mississippi. In 1929, having dropped out of high school, Ford began his literary career as co-editor, with Parker Tyler, of Blues: a magazine of new rhythms (1929-1930). The magazine showcased the new schools of modern art and literature, publishing such contemporary writers as Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams, Erskine Caldwell, Ezra Pound, and e. e. cummings.

By 1931 Charles Henri Ford had left the United States for France and began his world travels. During his first few years abroad, Ford wrote his only novel, The Young and the Evil (Obelisk, 1933). Later Ford lived in Morocco, Italy, France, Crete, and New York City; and his poetry, films, and artwork reflected his international travels and multicultural experiences.

From 1940 until 1947, Ford was editor and publisher of both the little magazine View and of View editions. Published in New York, View featured the works of avant-garde American and European artists and writers, especially the surrealist artists.

View , recognized as one of the most important little magazines of the 1940s, bore covers designed by such artists are Man Ray, René Magritte, Marcel Duchamp, and Alexander Calder, and contained the prose, fiction, critical essays, stories, and art of Wallace Stevens, Edouard Roditi, Max Ernst, Lincoln Kirstein, William Carlos Williams, Paul Bowles, James T. Farrell, Marc Chagall, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus.

In addition to his editorial achievements, Charles Henri Ford was a recognized poet and an accomplished artist. Since his first book of poetry, A Pamphlet of Sonnets (Caravel Press, 1936), more than fifteen collections of his poems have been published.

Charles Henri Ford was also a graphic artist, filmmaker and photographer. His photography, paintings, and drawings were exhibited in London, Paris, and New York; and frequently included collaborations with international craftsmen. For example, The Kathmandu Experience (New York Cultural Center, 1975) included sculptures in wood, embroideries in silk and appliques, all executed by Nepalese craftsmen from Ford's original designs; and his An Operation Minotaur Manifestation (The October Gallery, 1976) included the collages of Nepalese artists, Reepak Shakya and Indra Tamang.

Ford's motion pictures included Poem Posters (1966), which received the Fourth International Avant-Garde Film Festival Award in 1966, and Johnny Minotaur (1972).

Charles Henri Ford died September 27, 2002, in New York City.

May, Hal and Deborah A. Straub (eds.)Contemporary Authors. New Revision Series, Volume 25. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1989, pp. 237-238."Charles Henri Ford," The Telegraph. April 11, 2008. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1409048/Charles-Henri-Ford.html (accessed May 2011).Metzger, Linda (ed.)Contemporary Authors. New Revision Series, Volume 13. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1984. pp. 191-192.

African-American poet, jazz musician, and surrealist painter Ted Joans was a self-described "jazz poet" of the Beat generation.

Joans, who was also considered by many to be part of the French surrealist movement, was the only African-American painter to be viewed as part of that group. He was born July 4, 1938, in Cairo, Illinois.

Through his associations with Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, in Greenwich Village during the 1950s, Ted Joans has been identified as part of the Beat generation. In 1957, his first book of poetry, Beat Poems , was published by Deretchin, which also published his Funky Jazz Poems in 1959.

In the 1960s Joans became an expatriate, traveling the world, and later settling in Tangier, Morocco. As he painted and wrote poetry, Joans supported himself primarily through the sale of African artwork, which he collected during his travels in Africa. Some of his African experiences are reflected in the poems in his Afrodisia: new poems (1971).

Joans edited Dies und Das (1984), the first surrealist magazine published in Germany, and contributed to Black World , Coda Jazz Magazine , Jazz , and Presence Africaine .

Ted Joans died May 07, 2003, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Page, James A. and Jae Min Roh.Selected Black American, African and Caribbean Authors. Littleton, Colorado: Libraries Unlimited, Inc., 1985. p. 146."Ted Joans." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2004. Gale Biography In Context. http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/bic1/ (accessed May 5, 2011).