Double Trouble

Two books in one: The 119-page book features Ted’s work up to page 56; the latter half belongs to Bibbs. Includes eight photos, including four in color, and some black-and-white illustrations.

From the back cover:

Probably the most colorful poet in Paris, Ted Joans offers us a verbal armful of himself: his jazzy, earthy, knowledgeable reflections of his enriching friendships, worldwide experiences and wise pondering over matters ranging through sex, art, myth-as-history, and ritualized bloodshed–all “Teducation” rendered with humor and lively impact. We “chouf” at a six-armed photographer in Marrakech, sit with the poet at his real-life Parisian Café Le Rouquet, marveling at “derrière butts buttons behinds,” and later sadly agree that we are contemporaries of the Aztec executioner priests. This poet has the true African American vision: deep, comic, picturesque, and universally human. Hart Leroy Bibbs, unlike Ted Joans, exhibits more of the somber but rhythmical modes natural to the “paranoic chip shouldered brother” recollected in his autobiographical “Brosman, Omar.” Both poets (whose bibliographies are impressive) reveal their African American authenticity, the breadth of which–its compassion, humanity, borderlessness, and sophisticated knowledge–must become more widely recognized.

(Excerpt from the preface by James Emanuel)