Phil du Plessis, Afrikaans poet, musician and medical doctor, was born as Johannes du Plessis at Fouriesburg, in the Free State, South Africa, on 22 March 1944, and died in Cape Town on 28 November 2011. Following the appearance of his first anthology he was hailed by Andre Brink as the spokesman for an underground 'Sixties' group in Afrikaans poetry. Something of a Renaissance man, a leader of an Afrikaans avant-garde, his work was experimental, latterly integrating poetry and art.