Jack Davis (playwright)

For other people with the same name, see Jack Davis (disambiguation).

Jack Davis (11 March 1917 – 17 March 2000) was a notable Australian 20th-century playwright and poet, and an Indigenous rights campaigner. He was born in Western Australia, in the small town of Yarloop, and lived in Fremantle towards the end of his life. He was of the Aboriginal Noongar people, and much of his work dealt with the Indigenous Australian experience.

Although Davis composed many of his poems while working as a stockman in the Gascoyne in his twenties, his first volume of poetry was not published until 1970. He has been referred to as the twentieth century's Aboriginal Poet Laureate, and many of his plays are on Australian school syllabuses.

Davis was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1976, and a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 1985.

Works

Plays

• Kullark (1972)
• The Dreamers (1982)
• No Sugar (1985)
• Honeyspot (1985)
• Moorli and the Leprechaun (1986)
• Burungin (1988)
• Plays from Black Australia (1989)
• In your Town (1990)

Poetry

• The First-born and other poems (1970)
• The Black Tracker (1970)
• Jagardoo : Poems from Aboriginal Australia (1978)
• John Pat and Other Poems (1988) Publisher Dent Australia ISBN 0-86770-079-3
• Black Life : poems (1992)
• Wurru : poem from Aboriginal

Other works

• Jack Davis : A life-story (1988)
• A Boy's Life (1991)
• Paperbark : A Collection of Black Australian Writings (1992)http://www.uqp.uq.edu.au/book.aspx/147/Paperbark-%20A%20Collection%20Of%20Black%20Australian%20Writing

External links

• Jack Davis in AusStage