John Joseph Jones (poet)

by George J. Dance

Parkerville Amphitheatre. Courtesy Facebook.

John Joseph Jones (1930–2000) was a British-born Australian poet, composer, singer, playwright, and prose author, possibly best known for establishing the Parkerville Amphitheatre in Western Australia.

Life

Jones was born in London, England, of Welsh and English parents. He was a cousin of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas.

He first arrived in Australia as a teenager in 1948. Between 1950 and 1952, he worked briefly in England, Canada, and Fiji, but settled permanently in Australia in 1951. In 1954 he married Derrice Erskine Field in 1954; the couple had four children.

He majored in English and anthropology at the University of Western Australia, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1959.

After graduation Jones worked as a journalist for the Albany Advertiser, and a lecturer in the Western Australia's TAFE (Technical and Further Education) institutes for 20 years.

He performed at the first Winthrop Folk Festival, and at the 1964 Adelaide Festival of the Arts, which led to his recording five albums of his own folksongs: Five Australian Ballads, Songs and Ballads of Australia, Songs of John Shaw Neilson, Australian Songs and Ballads and Ballads of Durack and Sorensen.

Between 1966 and 1969 Jones built the Parkerville Amphitheatre with the help of numerous volunteers, including prison inmates and university students. The amphitheatre, the first in Western Australia, incorporated five stages and two theatres, where Jones staged the first open-air rock shows, wine festivals, children's creativity weeks, and environmental creativity weeks in the state, as well as his own plays. He continued to operate the Amphitheatre until his death in 2000.

Publications

Poetry

• Love (illustrated by Astrid Dahl). Perth, W.A.: Artlook Books, 1983.
• A Day at Hiroshima, Parkerville, and other poems. Hovea, W.A.: Parkerville Amphitheatre, 1983.
• Three Poems of Celebration (illustrated by Daniel Argyle). Claremont, W.A.: Hovea Press, 1994.
• Summertime Poems (illustrated by Lawrence John Jones). Claremont, W.A.: Hovea Press, 1994.

Songs

• Condamine Bells: Songs and stories of the Australian outback (poems by by John Joseph Jones; Mary Durack; Jack Sorensen; Billy Edwards; Patsy Durack). Perth, W.A.: Carroll's, 1961.
• Australian New Folk and Art Songs: with full piano accompaniments and guitar chord symbols by John Joseph Jones. Kewdale, W.A.: John Joseph Jones& Co., 1966.
• A Singer and his Songs of Early Australia, Sydney: Southern Music, 1970.
• Pipedream: Original libretto, with revisions and additions by the librettist (by John Joseph Jones; set to music by Kevin Fenner). Perth, W.A.: Hovea Music Press, 1995.

Plays

• The Undivided: A verse play in three acts. Perth, W.A.: John Joseph Jones & Co., 1965. \

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of Australian poets

External links

About

• John Joseph Jones in the Oxford Companion to Australian Literature
• John Joseph Jones at Hovea Music Press.
• John Joseph Jones 1930-2000
• John Joseph Jones at AustLit.

Etc.

• Jones, John Joseph 1930-2000 archive, State Library of Western Australia
• Parkerville Amphitheatre: Returning to nature

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