#ern malley

[poemoftheday]

April Fool’s Day Bonus - Ern Malley

Ern Malley is a famous Australian literary hoax by Australian poets James McAuley and Harold Stewart.  

Poetry: the loaves and fishes, Or no less miracle; For in this deft pentacle We imprison our wishes.

Though stilled to alabaster This Ichthys shall swim From the mind’s disaster On the volatile hymn.

If this be the norm Of our serious frolic There’s no remorse:

Our magical force Cleaves the ignorant storm On the hyperbolic.

[ingebjorg9]

I had often, cowled in the slumberous heavy air, Closed my inanimate lids to find it real, As I knew it would be, the colourful spires And painted roofs, the high snows glimpsed at the back, All reversed in the quiet reflecting waters — Not knowing then that Dürer perceived it too. Now I find that once more I have shrunk To an interloper, robber of dead men’s dream, I had read in books that art is not easy But no one warned that the mind repeats In its ignorance the vision of others. I am still the black swan of trespass on alien waters.

“Ern Malley”, Dürer: Innsbruck, 1495

Ern Malley was not a real poet, but a figure created by the Australian poets James McAulay and Harold Stewart in order to hoax the Modernist magazine editor Max Harris.  They tried to deliberately write bad poetry with awkward rhymes and nonsensical sentences to create a satire of modern poetry that would fool Harris.  They were successful, and Harris devoted an entire issue of his magazine to this newly-discovered poet, only to be humiliated when the hoax was discovered.  However, “Ern Malley” took on a life of his own, and his shadow still looms large over Australian literature today.  He is still quoted, and his poetry is found in several anthologies.  In spite of themselves, McAulay and Stewart created some pretty memorable poems and a character who just won’t die.

[batgovernor]

Odd poem: 'Sonnets for the Novachord (1.)' by the non-existent Ern Malley

Rise from the wrist, o kestrel Mind, to a clear expanse. Perform your high dance On the clouds of ancestral Duty. Hawk at the wraith Of remembered emotions. Vindicate our high notions Of a new and pitiless faith. It is not without risk! In a lofty attempt The fool makes a brisk Tumble. Rightly contempt Rewards the cloud-foot unwary Who falls to the prairie. ***** This sonnet is by “Ern” Malley,…

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[jakesbrain]

...Nature

Has her own green centuries which move

Through our thin convex time. Aeons

Of that purpose slowly riot

In the decimals of our deceiving age.

It may be for nothing that we are:

But what we are continues

In larger patterns than the frontal stone

That taunts the living life.

[poemoftheday]

Poem of the Day 1 April 2022

Night-piece (Alternate Version) by Ern Malley

The intemperate torch grazed With fire the umbel of the dark. The pond-lilies could not stifle The green descant of frogs.

We had not heeded the warning That the iron birds creaked. As we swung the park-gates Their beaks glinted with dew.

A splash — the silver nymph Was a foam flake in the night. But though the careful winds Visited our trembling flesh They carried no echo.

[lepartiprisdeschoses]

I had often, cowled in the slumberous heavy air, Closed my inanimate lids to find it real,

The 'inanimate' has me imagining the speaker manually closing their eyes or something.

[susanwritesprecise]

Perfidy & Discontinuity

It’s time for the Weekly Terrible Poetry Contest hosted by Chelsea Ann Owens. This week we are supposed to emulate Ern Malley. Ern was the pen name of two poets who thought a certain poetry publication (Angry Penguins) published crap. To prove their point, they constructed bad poetry and submitted the lot. According to the Wikipedia page, “enraptured by the poetry, [the editors] devoted the next…

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[spilledreality]

“And I must go with stone feet / Down the staircase of flesh”

—Ern Malley