WARWICK, N.Y. - The Tuscan Café in Warwick, N.Y., will resemble a Greenwich Village coffee house of the early 1960s, at 8 p.m. Friday, April 21, as poets, writers, artists and musicians join in “A Joans for Poetry: A Celebration of Ted Joans.” Participants will read from the works of the late African-American Beat poet and/or present original material in his spirit. Joans, who died in late April 2003, was one of the original Beat poets. He was the author of over 30 books of poetry, prose, and collage, including All of Ted Joans, Black Pow-Wow, Beat Funky Jazz Poems, Afrodisia, Jazz is Our Religion, Double Trouble, Wow, and Teducation. Among those taking part in the program are Mikhail Horowitz, Andy Clausen, Tad Richards, Guy Burton, and the Joe Payne band. A rare 12-minute video, featuring Joans together with musician/composer David Amram at New York University in 1994, will also be shown, courtesy of Amram. In addition, local high-school students and teen members of the MCC Actor Training School in Warwick will contribute to the program. Copies of Joans’ book, Wow, will be available for sale. Mikhail Horowitz, who describes himself as “the Hudson Valley’s most extravagantly vilified neo-Beat performance poet,” is the author of Big League Poets and The Opus of Everything in Nothing Flat. His performance work has been featured on seven CDs, including The Blues of the Birth, a collection of his jazz fables, on the Euphoria! Jazz label. Andy Clausen has read his poetry all over North America and around the world. Among his best known books are The Iron Curtain of Love, Without Doubt, and his selected verse of 30 years, 40th Century Man. Allen Ginsberg once described Clausen as “the future of American poetry.” Tad Richards’ credits include poetry, fiction, song lyrics. screenplays, nonfiction, journalism, art and drama. The poetry includes four books - The Gravel Business, The Map of the Bear, My Night with the Language Thieves, and Situations, a novel in verse. Richards teaches poetry at SUNY New Paltz and also serves as director of Opus 40 in Saugerties. Guy Burton started the Warwick Writers Association almost 11 years ago and still convenes meetings every Wednesday. His most recent novel, Jack in the Pulpit, was published last year. Burton, who also plays saxophone in the Joe Payne Band, will read “The Sax Bit” by Ted Joans. “I am especially happy that the high-school kids have been so enthusiastic about participating,” said Michael Kaufman of Warwick, organizer of the event, who recalled that he was a high-school student on Long Island when he first heard Joans read in Greenwich Village. Joans was known for bringing jazz and the “spoken word” together on the bandstand. When his former roommate, legendary jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, passed away in 1955, it was Joans who first scrawled “Bird Lives!” on walls and sidewalks all over Lower Manhattan. “Ted Joans lives!” on those same walls. Admission is $5. The Tuscan Café is located at 2 South Street in Warwick village. For information, call 845-987-2050.