Introduction
Jack Leonard Davis AM, BEM (11 March 1917 – 17 March 2000) was an Australian 20th-century playwright and poet, and an Indigenous rights campaigner. He was born in Western Australia, in Perth, and lived in Fremantle towards the end of his life. He was of the 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 received the Medal of the Order of the British Empire (BEM) 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