I’ve been reading Michael Heyward’s The Ern Malley Affair. It’s a terrific book. I ended up there after finding three of Gray’s poems in Ern Malley’s Journal, an offshoot of Angry Penguins funded by the Reeds and co-edited by John Reed, Barrett Reid, and Max Harris.
The Ern Malley Affair is still one of Australia’s great literary scandals. In 1943, two conservative poets, Lieutenant James McAuley and Corporal Harold Stewart, invented a poet called Ern Malley to poke fun at modernism. They wrote a batch of surreal poems and, posing as Ern’s sister Ethel, mailed them to Max Harris, saying she found them while cleaning her late brother’s room.
Harris, then editing Angry Penguins, was captivated. He saw real power in the work and published the poems in 1944, along with an essay praising this new modernist voice. The hoax soon came out, humiliating Harris and lighting up a fierce debate about art and literature. Angry Penguins folded in 1946.
Six years later, in a mix of defiance and irony, the circle tried again with Ern Malley’s Journal. Sunday and John Reed backed it, and they encouraged their protégés to contribute. Sunday, in particular, was keen to see Gray’s poems in the journal and pushed for him to submit.
Gray’s poems Hold-Up (Vol. 1, No. 1, 1952) and later Murder and Standing (Vol. 2, No. 2, 1955) appeared in its pages. You can see them below.
© Smith Estate. Used with permission via CAL.
© Smith Estate. Used with permission via CAL.
© Smith Estate. Used with permission via CAL.
