Jas H. Duke

Jas Heriot Duke (1939-1992) was a cult figure in the Australian performance poetry scene. He worked much of his life in Melbourne Board of Works and began writing poetry in 1966. He was influenced by Dada, Expressionism and experimental movements. He writes "I started performing poems as a timid person with a stutter but the spirit of the times soon converted me into a bellowing bull."

During the 60s he travelled in to the UK and Europe and participated in the underground publishing and filmaking scenes in Brighton and London. Returning to Australia in 1972 he worked as a draughtsman and continued publishing and performing, writing a novel about his travels entitled "Destiny Wood". [Pi O, "Jas H. Duke" Pp. 172-3 in "A Salt Reader" (Folio, no date) ISBN 0-646-12445-5]

Duke's writings included translations of French and Eastern European Modernist poets but he is best remembered for his sound poems. Nicholas Zurbrugg describes his work as "the voice played like a human saxophone". His collected poems are published by Collective Effort press in Melbourne as "Poems of War and Peace". He died June 19, 1992.

Bibliography

Poetry
*"Poems of War and Peace" (Collective Effort, 1989)
*"Dada kampfen um leben und tod: A prose poem" [Dada fight for life and death] (Wayzgoose, 1996)

Novel
*"Destiny Wood" (circa 1976)

External links

* [http://www.ubu.com/sound/duke.html Poems Of Life And Death] 16 mp3s at UbuWeb
* [http://www.gangway.net/1/gangway1.5.html Alehkine and Junge at Prague] poem with German translation
* [http://www.wairaka.net/ubinz/JT/ppt02/index.htm False consciousness] hypertext poem
* [http://www.thing.net/~grist/l&d/thalia/au-jdf01.htm Fablegrams] concrete poems
* [http://www.rainerlinz.net/NMA/repr/Duke.html Sounds, sound poetry, and sound/text compositions] essay on ‘Sound poetry’

References

Persondata
NAME=Jas H. Duke
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=20th century Australian avant-garde poet and anarchist
DATE OF BIRTH=1939
PLACE OF BIRTH=Ballarat, Australia
DATE OF DEATH=June 19, 1992
PLACE OF DEATH=Melbourne, Australia