Hoax! Podcast – "Ern Malley Poetry"
iHeartMedia | Hosts: Dana Schwartz & Lizzie Logan | September 15, 2025
Overview
This episode delves into the fascinating story of the Ern Malley literary hoax—one of the most notorious incidents in poetry history. Through personal anecdotes, playful banter, and a thorough retelling, Dana Schwartz and Lizzie Logan explore why the hoax worked, what it reveals about art, belief, and status-seeking, and how the fallout affected reputations, modernist poetry, and the culture at large. The episode is both a wry commentary on literary pretensions and a thoughtful meditation on the interplay between story, art, and authenticity.
Major Discussion Points & Insights
1. Why We Fall for Hoaxes (02:32–09:32)
-
Relatability & Setup:
Lizzie and Dana open with personal stories about anonymous literary pranks and parody—themes that neatly set up the Ern Malley saga.- Lizzie: Submitting a parody play under a pseudonym to gently lampoon an annoying peer (04:58).
- Dana: Creating the popular “Guy in your MFA” parody Twitter account to satirize pretentious workshop writers (06:25).
"You can get a little meaner [when anonymous]... and also those people are sometimes easy to make fun of."
— Dana Schwartz (08:05)
2. Setting the Stage: Australia’s Poetry Wars (09:03–13:44)
- 1940s Australia:
Political, artistic, and national identity are in flux amid WWII.- Competing literary camps:
- Formalists: Insist on European forms, rhyme, and meter.
- Jindi Warabaks: Celebrate bush ballads and (somewhat appropriative) nationalist poetry.
- Modernists: Inspired by Dickinson and Whitman, seek innovation in form ("as many EM dashes as you want").
- Modernism is viewed with suspicion—sometimes as a symptom of communism or cultural decline.
- Notable quote:
"Writing free verse poetry was like playing tennis without a net."
— Robert Frost, cited by Dana (10:50)
- Competing literary camps:
3. Enter Max Harris and ‘Angry Penguins’ (13:44–15:44)
- Max Harris:
- Young literary prodigy; pretentious and bohemian.
- Founds Angry Penguins, a modernist literary magazine, funded by his mom and supported by avant-garde patrons.
- Known for both his talent and his abrasiveness:
"He's so annoying on campus... students call a meeting, they're like, 'we need to teach this guy a lesson.'"
— Lizzie (13:53) - Sets the stage for him as the perfect target for a literary prank.
4. The Hoax Unfolds: The Arrival of Ern Malley (15:44–18:48)
- A Letter from Ethel Malley:
- Supposedly, Ethel sends Max the poems of her recently deceased brother, Ern, who died young and unknown.
- Max, enthralled, calls them the best modernist poems he’s seen and dedicates a whole issue to Ern Malley (18:41).
- Immediate Suspicion:
- Many believe "Ern Malley" is a cover—possibly for Max himself.
- Harris insists the poems stand on their own merit regardless of provenance.
5. The Poems and Comedic Absurdity (23:01–28:55)
- Max's teacher reviews the poems with a parody:
"Oh, that's so mean that your professor burns you that way... [His poem] spells 'Max Harris hoax.'"
— Dana (23:01) - Dana and Lizzie read aloud a poem ("Sweet William"):
"Already, if a poem has the word vortex, I'm kind of out."
— Dana Schwartz (25:39)- They agree the poems are clichéd and intentionally obtuse—red flags for parody more than genuine art.
6. The Big Reveal: Who Wrote Ern Malley? (26:46–30:57)
- Culprits Exposed:
- James McAuley and Harold Stewart, two army poets, compose the poems in an afternoon as a deliberate pastiche—using random sources, pamphlets, snippets from their own earlier work, and meaningless imagery.
- Lizzie reads from the perpetrators' statement:
"If Mr. Harris had sufficient discrimination to reject the poems, then the tables would have been turned."
— Quoting McAuley & Stewart (31:52)
- Motivation:
- To ridicule credulity and pretentiousness in modernist poetry; also perhaps to specifically embarrass Harris.
7. The Fallout: Legal and Cultural Backlash (36:03–38:00)
- Public and Institutional Ramifications:
- Max Harris is tried for "publishing indecent material" (36:11) due to sexual content.
- He is convicted and fined; Angry Penguins soon folds.
- Max becomes a public laughingstock, except for a cable from T.S. Eliot:
"T.S. Eliot cables Harris and was like, I would have fallen for this."
— Lizzie (35:05)
8. Reflection: Was There Any ‘Talent’ in the Hoax? (38:00–47:18)
- Debate about whether accidental or intentionally bad poetry can ever be "real" art.
"Isn't it possible that by accident they wrote really good poems? Or do you have to be trying to write good poems to write good poems?"
— Lizzie (45:42) - The hosts compare the Ern Malley hoax to found poetry, AI art, Twitter bots, and Instagram poets like Rupi Kaur, exploring how context, expectation, and story shape our response to art.
"The context and history ... makes the poems interesting. That ... is more interesting than the poems themselves."
— Dana (45:53)
9. Legacy: Where Are They Now and Why It Matters (41:38–44:59)
- McAuley & Stewart:
- Never again as famous; one becomes a Buddhist poet in Japan, the other an English department chair and conservative editor (possibly supported by the CIA!).
- Max Harris:
- Careers in journalism, bookselling (pioneering remaindered books), and literary controversy. Remains unbowed:
"I still believe in Ern Malley."
— Max Harris, quoted by Lizzie (43:33) - Murdoch calls him "a catalyst and an irritant"—a necessary gadfly for society (42:46).
- Careers in journalism, bookselling (pioneering remaindered books), and literary controversy. Remains unbowed:
10. Art, Authenticity, and the Allure of a Good Story (47:18–54:46)
- Powerful stories surrounding art—from fake memoirs to viral poems—often matter as much as the work itself.
"People fully understand that the story and context that art comes from makes it more interesting."
— Dana (51:15) - Examples:
- Confederacy of Dunces, sold as a posthumous discovery;
- The memoir/novel “A Million Little Pieces”;
- Diablo Cody’s Juno & the power of autobiographical branding;
- The temptation to believe in characters, not just creators.
- The episode ends noting how easily we’re captivated by stories—real or fake—especially when they align with what we want to believe.
Memorable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)
-
On poetic pretension:
"I created this parody Twitter account called guy in your mfa … making fun of the pretentious lit bros in your writing workshops who are just writing really boring stories about men on trains."
Dana Schwartz (06:46) -
On the power of a story:
"The romance of the story around [art] … is more appealing to him than the poems itself."
Lizzie Logan (33:54) -
On literary hoaxes:
"He thought they were good poems till the end. He died in 1995 as a pretty well regarded member of the literary community."
Lizzie Logan on Max Harris (43:44) -
On context making art:
"History and context makes all art more interesting … I want the placard explaining it to me … I want to learn the context."
Dana (46:16) -
On making and mocking art:
"It's hard to make anything. And it is very easy and fun to make fun of things. Those two facts are both true."
Dana (50:32)
Notable Segment Timestamps
- Personal anecdotes on literary parody: 03:38–08:11
- Australian poetry scene/set-up: 09:03–13:44
- The emergence of Ern Malley: 15:44–18:48
- Reading & critiquing the ‘Ern Malley’ poems: 24:27–26:41
- Hoax revealed & pranksters confess: 26:46–31:44
- Max Harris’s trial and public shaming: 36:03–38:00
- Parallels to modern “found” poetry, AI art, Instagram poets: 43:59–50:32
- Reflections on the value of backstory and context in art: 51:08–55:04
Takeaways
- The Ern Malley hoax is as much about craving a compelling narrative as it is about questioning artistic merit.
- The context, intention, and mythology behind creative works can matter more than the works themselves.
- Even deliberate pranks can create lasting art and provoke ongoing debate about authenticity and value.
- In an age of “fake news,” viral memes, and AI, the Ern Malley story is an enduring reminder to ask not just is this true? but why do I want it to be?
Final Word:
"Look up the Ern Malley poems and decide for yourself."
— Dana Schwartz (55:26)