POETS IN SPITE OF THEMSELVES?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 303, 13 April 1945, Page 10

POETS IN SPITE OF THEMSELVES?

Ern Malley Has The Last Laugh

EADERS may remember that in July of last year we printed our account of the "Ern Malley Affair" — the so-called perpetrated by two young ‘Australian poets who wished to ‘discredit the literary periodical Angry ‘Penguins. They wrote a number of ‘poems and sent them to Angry Penguins under the name of "Ethel Malley," who said they were the work of her late brother, Ern. After Angry Penguins had introduced the poems (not without some portentous trumpet-blowing) as the life work of a modern genius, James ‘McAuley (aged 26) and Harold Stewart (aged 27) claimed in the daily press that they had intentionally written some rubbish in one afternoon with the aid of a few books to parody the type of writing that Angry Penguins went in for, and sent it in as the work of the fictitious Malley. Their statement that the poems were "of no literary merit,’ coming apparently from the horse’s mouth, was taken up by the press in Australia and in England for the literal truth, and the hoaxers saw ‘their object achieved -Angry Penguins and its editors (John Reed and Max Harris) were loudly ridiculed for having "fallen in." And certainly their solemn weeping over @ young man’s grave that did not exist was amusing when you knew the facts. But people who examined the poems themselves saw another side to the story.

Angry Penguins and its followers stuck by "Ern Malley," and _ insisted that, however the poems had been composed, they had a genuine literary merit which existed still, let the author or authors say what they might. The Listener also found it difficult to believe that the hoax had been perpetrated in one afternoon, and in its. latest issue Angry Penguins has collected the remarks for the defence of various people, including the English poet and critic Herbert Read, and published them together with other items pertaining to the affair, such as the facsimile of the "Ethel Malley" letter, a photograph of "Ern Malley" (whimsically included without comment in a page of portraits of other "penguins") and extracts from the judgment of the magistrate who found Angry Penguins guilty of obscenity (for the furore had caused even the police to read the notorious issue, and there they found evidence for a prosecution). We have selected some passages from these various statements, and now print them here, headed first by the cable Herbert Read sent to Angry Penguins, and then parts of the subsequent letter: Herbert Read’s Cable I TOO WOULD HAVE BEEN DECEIVED BY ERN MALLEY BUT HOAXER HOISTED BY OWN PETARD HAS TOUCHED OFF UNCONSCIOUS SOURCES INSPIRATION WORK TOO SOPHISTICATED BUT HAS ELEMENTS. GENUINE POETRY — * % « Herbert Read’s Letter "T have sent off a cable about the Ern Malley affair which I hope will

teach you in time to be of some use. Actually I had been forewarned of the hoax, for the news was even splashed in our own press, which only takes any notice of poetry or art when it is associated with crime or sensation of some sort. But I read the poems in an objective spirit, and though I find them very uneven, often obscure, and sometimes absurd, yet . . . the general effect is undoubtedly poetic, and poetic on an unusual level of achievement." After discussing the "phenomenon of parody" and the processes of poetic creation, as exemplified in precedent cases where "you may find many instances of the beauty of the mocking bird’s cry," Herbert Read went on to praise certain of the Malley poems, and said: "If a man of sensibility . . . sets out to fake works of imagination, then, if he is to be convincing, he must use the poetic faculties. If he uses these faculties to good effect, he ends by deceiving himself. So has the faker of Ern Malley. "I admire your effort, there is vitality in it, and nothing remote or amateurish ..» At the same time I find in most of the work you publish a sophistication which is clever rather than moving. It is not simple enough, not human enough. We cannot provide you with models of simplicity and truth-our condition in England is as bad as yours, but I think we are more disillusioned. The models are not Kafka and Rilke, not Joyce, not Picasso. ‘The idols are all destroyed by this war. We have to look inside ourselves and outside at nature, with new and innocent eyes, and then we may

create an art which even Ern Malley could not fake." Yours sincerely,

HERBERT

READ

For and Against A, R. CHISHOLM (Dean of Faculty of Arts, Professor of French, Melbourne University): "Believe it or not, much of it is really poetry-a fact that makes some of the pontifical press statements all the more comic:, those who rushed in to rebuke ‘those young modernists’ for not having known better were in reality quite joyously hoaxed themselves .. ." (Professor Chisholm went on to explain re+ current themes and elaborate schemes of ideas in the poems that could not have got there except by deliberate and skilful means) . . . "My conclusion is-that one at least of ‘the two writers is so genuine a poet that even when he sets out to mystify an editor he can’t help writing poetically. It’s like a_highlyeducated man trying to talk Cockney . . . now and again his training will assert itself .. ." REG. S. ELLERY (Melbourne psychi* atrist):

"Ern Malley was born of the mental conjunction of two poets... who sought to diddle the dilettanti with some metrical eye-wash from Betty Martin. Brain bestrode brain, therefore, and Ern was

conceived. His gestation was cerebra: and his birth intellectual. It was accomplished without accouchement in the literary frolic of an afternoon. He sprang full grown, like Minerva, from the brains of his progenitor . . ." BRIAN ELLIOTT (Lecturer in Australian Literature, Adelaide University; popular, radio literary commentator): _"As to the merit or lack of it... no one should be in a better position to evaluate it than the authors. But .. .- in their eagerness to score off the Angry Penguins they have been a little blind to the brilliance of their own execution. They are quite mistaken if they imagine there is no coherent theme in the poetry..." ADRIAN LAWLOR (pioneer of the modern movement in Australia, who gives weekly radio talks on literature and art): "They have given themselves expres- | sion in the only terms in which it is possible for a poet or any sort of artist, great or small, ‘real’ or ‘false,’ to express himself; in terms, that is, which have proceeded from . . . an imaginative impulse. And that an imaginative impulse, as such, cannot in any circumstances be described as false I need hardly insist at this time of day." ALBERT TUCKER (status not mefitioned — contributor to "Angry Penguins"): "The easy assumption of the press that because it was planned as a hoax (if all of it was) it cannot be art, does not follow. I see nothing in the working. method, even if correctly described, (continued on next page)

© (continued from previous page) which could exclude the occurrence of aesthetic values .. ." H. M. GREEN (Librarian, Fisher Library, Sydney, critic, atithor): "Sting them, sting them, my Anopheles,’ wrote Messrs. McAuley and Stewart in their ‘serious frolic.’ And they have been stung, not only the Penguins but the whole group, overseas as well as Australian ... Even if one were disposed to accept the rather thin contention that the hoaxers somelHiow composed great poetry unconsciously and in spite of themselves, that contention is exploded by their detailed account of the deliberate way in which the whole business. was carried out. What is more, the stinging was justified and timely, as an attack upon a perversion of poetry that has spread to three continents .. ." DOROTHY GREEN (literary critic, wife of H. M. Green, above): "The Ern Malley debacle was the logical result of a long-standing failure of critical responsibility: the failure that enabled Angry Penguins to despise those who did not see completely eye to eye with them ... to reserve to themselves the last word on all matters of criticism of the arts, while neglecting often to make their criticisms even grammatical." HARRY ROSKOLENKO (American poet, contributor. to "Angry Penguins); "The poems themselves are not a true hoax, for too many of them are too ond in themselves." MAX HARRIS (one of the editors of "Angry Penguins," writer of the introduction to the original publication of the Malley poems): "The boys are confronted with a nasty ogre-the works of Ern Malley have taken in people much more diverse than devotees of Angry Penguins . . . The ugly doubt must be raising its head that Ern Malley has succeeded far too well for their comfort, and the cheap shoddy applause is a pretty hollow kind of triumph ... NOEL COUNIHAN (in the Communist Weekly "Guardian" ): "This hoax has confirmed the view, expressed months ago by Marxist writers in critical articles to Angry Penguins, that the publication reflected the complete cultural bankruptcy of the decadent Right Wing of the Contemporary Art Society ... Each issue has revealed that weaithy John Reed (married to a Bailcd self-acclaimed genius Max Harris . (and others) . have adopted a and more anti-working class, antiSoviet position. The bulk of their journal, available for ‘red’-baiting, remains strangely unaware of the menace of fascism . . . While this hoax has been widely it is as well to indicate that the aims of the perpetrators cannot be accepted without reservation. Why does the Malley nonsense contain the cynicism at the expense of the Popular Front, for which so many intellectuals and workers gave their lives? Why is Lenin dragged in with a fictitious and absurd quote? What are the targets here?" * * Ea Indecent Penguins O much for the debate, as far as it remained "out of court." This is what L. E. Clarke, the magistrate who heard the police prosecution, had to say about other aspects of Angry Penguins than the genuineness of Ern Malley:

"Tt cannot be said that Angry Penguins is necessary for the pursuit of literature or art (Mr. Clarke had said that to prove this point in respect of the passages under consideration would have been a defence and justification) and, although the publication as a whole may be advantageous to the pursuit of literature or art, it certainly cannot in my opinion be said that the passages . . . complained of come within this category. Angry Penguins would not in my opinion be even a work of literary merit within the meaning of the Victorian Act. In my opinion the passages complained of are of an indecent nature." Max Harris was fined £5. Birdsong at Eventide Here is an extract from the evidence of the sole Crown witness, Detective Vogelsang: "In ‘Night Piece’ I think there is a suggestion of indecency about it. The whole thing is

indecent. Apparently someone is shining a torch in the dark, visiting through the park gates. To my mind they were going there for some disapproved motive. I think . , . there is a suggestion of indecency in it, in the way I mentioned, in that they were visiting there for some purpose, an immoral purpose. I have found that people who go-into parks at night go there for immoral purposes. My experience as a police officer might under certain circumstances tinge my appreciation of literature. The word ‘incestuous’ I regard as indecent. I do not know what ‘incestuous’ means. I think there is a suggestion of indecency about it.’’ And finally, by way of envoi, we reprint from the "Stop Press" on. the back cover this news item from the Adelaide News, November 29, 1944: "The Commigsioner of Police (Mr. Johns) has awarded a special mention to Detective J. Vogelsang for ‘zealousness and competency in securing evidence for the prosecution of an indecent publication.’ "