Jas H. Duke

Jas Heriot Duke (16 October 1939 – 19 June 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, surrealism 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."

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.

Duke died in Melbourne, Victoria on 19 June 1992.