Ern Malley

I am spoilt for choice today.  We are in Melbourne for the weekend, and chose to meet up with ex-blipper Nevermore at the Heide Museum of Modern Art.  We had intended to wander through the gardens, and look at the sculptures, but the morning was wet so we sat in the cafe, and drank coffee, and had a good old natter.

Nevermore left us for another commitment, and the Rower and I had an explore once the showers cleared.

I have been aware of this place for decades.

In another life I was personal assistant and secretary to a bloke called Max Harris.  Max was a writer, poet and publisher, and in his young days published a literary journal called Angry Penguins.  It's complicated, but a couple of young Sydney poets played a practical joke on him, and submitted a series of 16 poems for the journal, supposedly by Ern Malley.  If you are interested you can read about Max and the whole story in Wikipedia; and I was going to reprint one of the poems here, but they are a tad long.  You can read all of them here.  They are meant to be rubbish, but despite themselves I believe the pranksters wrote some very good stuff.  

We had a terrific day; it brought back some wonderful memories for me about my Bohemian boss, and it was great to see Nevermore again.