The task of selecting and verifying the contributors to this issue was one that we did not really relish. The fact remains that even half a century after the fact, a lot of information relating to the Ern Malley affair remains under wraps or else so confused and contradictory as to send literary journal editors mad.

Some might say, rightly so.

Nevertheless after a gruelling process of identification, we were *reasonably* confident that the Children of Malley represented a new elite in Australian poetry. Or at the very least, they did so on the day Children of Malley II was released. Since that time, all of the contributors have been exposed as fakes.

‘King’ James Malley is Stuart Barnes

‘King’ James Malley – Xanax addict, G&T guzzler, Friday night transvestite – is the long-suffering editor of the Old Testament, Apocrypha, & the New Testament.

Sally Malley is Matt Hetherington

Sally Malley was married to both Ern Malley and Ali Carey. She may still be half-alive. Or half-asleep. All her poems are born from having a jaw of gold and a heart of glass.

Margie Malley is Brett Dionysius

Margie Malley spends her days trawling through council libraries and second hand bookshops for school texts that other people have written notes in, preferrably in the margins, but anywhere will do really. She then writes down these marginalia and publishes them as her own found poems. Sometimes she finds the margin notes of famous writers when they were in high school.

Ethered Malley is joanne burns

Ethelred Malley is a 2nd cousin of Ern Malley. He was a railway worker [chief shunter] at Junee NSW in the 1960s. As a garden sculpture artist he won local and regional prizes for a series of painted wood carvings of penguins and flamingoes, amongst other subjects. Ethelred started writing the occasional poem during night shift teabreaks at the Junee Junction. He was married briefly to Laurel, a railway ‘buff girl’*. Ethelred had a special fondness for cousin Ernest’s poem “Night Piece”.

* a ‘buff girl’ was a woman who worked in the buffet dining carriage of such trains as ‘The Spirit of Progress’.

Blinkie ‘Bill’ O’Malley is Adrian Wiggins

Born in the wild. Raised by koalas. Founded Wandin Valley.

Bernie Malley is Emily Stewart

After recovering from a bout of chicken pox in the summer of ’02 at age 33, Bernie ran to exile, exploring the townships of regional NSW via the Countrylink Express. He was gone for three months and can’t tell you what happened in that time, sorry.

Nessy Malley is Fleur Beaupert

Nessy Malley, the sole surviving kitten of the notorious pigeon-obsessed Malley cat, was born under a rock in the Auralia desert but she soon got the travel bug and has been wandering the globe ever since in search of her true catty self.

Ern Malvern Star is Nick Whittock and Tim Wright

Ern Malvern Star resides on the north facing slopes of the Brunswick velodrome. Here the morning sun gets the wagtails hopping. On alternate laps Ern draws penises or writes poetry on the concrete.

Francois Sagat O’Malley is Liam Ferney and Jaya Savige

Francois Sagat O’Malley was refused classification.

Earned is Philton

A booming baby, Earned was born in Drumcondra. His mother a music teacher, his father on the railways, the family led an itinerant life through country regions. Earned’s literary promise was revealed when he scored high marks for school essays. He subsequently pestered La Trobe University for a decade. In the wake of being a famous reporter on an island, Earned enriches his potential by touring overland using a quadrant and augments this with his dictum Provenance is for Poobahs. When Earned is not frolicking with cephalopods in Port Philip Bay (for which, he says, he’s well-armed), he lurks between Arthur’s Seat and Martha’s Mount. Earned cannot prove he’s related to Peter Lalor.

Walker Norris is Alan Wearne

Walker Norris may have been Dransfield’s dealer for one weekend of Hey Jude and McArthur Park but his biggest moment occurred when Allen Ginsberg proclaimed at an Adelaide Writer’s “Walker Norris IS the Generation of ’68!” The Generation never forgiving him he went into Cultural Studies.

Dodi ‘Dodo’ Malley is Michael Farrell

Dodi, known as ‘Dodo’, lived with her sister Petula-Cassata. Their legal surname was originally Georgian, but being adopted, they believed they were related to Ern Malley – possibly his daughters. This theme is touched on in Dodi ‘Dodo’s poem, ‘The Pompom Fruiterer is my Biological Father’. Both changed their surname to Malley as adults. I know nothing of their work history if any. They were first cousins of my grandfather and I met them only once when I was a young child. At some point in their middle age they became friends with Bradley Trushott, who incorporated the Malley surname into his own – becoming Bradley Malley-Trushott. It’s possible that Dodi ‘Dodo’ married or formed a sexual relationship with Bradley, but there is no evidence for this. All three apparently wrote poems together, possibly collaborating (their styles are quite similar). She was killed, along with Petula-Cassata and Bradley, when a semi-trailer wiped out their badly-situated brick home on the side of the Princes Highway. (Grantley Georgian)

Ern Malley III is Gregory Horne

Ern Malley III did not learn about his illustrious grandfather until he was well into his twenties. By this stage, he had already completed an apprenticeship, but had become disillusioned with the motor trade and was working as a dishwasher on the ‘Nepean Belle’ in Penrith NSW.

John Malley is Corey Wakeling

He writes: Dear When, Sir I was through going my brother’s death. I, things found after some, his poetry written, had I, but am a judge, friend. Of who… it… I myself showed it, thinks it, to it, is very good! And should, told, be published. On me, it, his advice, am sending you some of the poems for an opinion. We are descendants. We are many. These ones are John. John was always his suburban favourite. Offer his death some opinions. Yours Sincerely, a Malley.

Bradley Malley-Trushott is Michael Farrell

Bradley Malley-Trushott lived with two of my elderly relatives. It’s said he was married to one of them, but there’s some conflict over which one. I have been unable to locate a marriage certificate. I know nothing of his early life. He was killed, along with Petula-Cassata and Dodi ‘Dodo’ Malley, when a truck came off the Princes Highway and smashed into their three bedroom orange brick home. I found this poem, with poems by the two women, among their papers. (Grantley Georgian)

Janice ‘Pearl’ Malley is Stuart Barnes

19/01/1943 – 04/10/1970: “She chewed the blues and charred guitars no worse than Uncle Ern”.

Aurelia Schober Malley is Stuart Barnes

26/04/1906 – 11/03/1994: Wife of Otto, mother to Sylvia, Warren & Ern.

Giacomo Mally is Martin Bennett

When Giacomo Mally ran away from his Melbourne suburb nobody quite remembers. These poems (or copies or translations therof) were sent from Rome by Giacomo Malley’s part-time alter ego and literary executor.

Recuperating Malley is Dennis Garvey

Recuperating Malley’s biography is an enigma.

Joe Dimalley-o is Chris Brown

The Dimalley-os and the Malleys are linked not only ancestrally but by a love of poetry. Italo-Australian Joe Dimalley-o lives in Leichhardt.

Chase Malley is also Chris Brown

Chase Malley is the grandnephew of Ern. His most recent book, published last year and dedicated to Ern, is called ‘An Entelechy of Clouds’.

Penumbra O’Malley is Roger Callan

Marika Oliveraz-O’Halleran was born in 1920 on the banks of Strzelecki Creek in South Australia, in the marginal shade of a Coolabah. Ern once had a tender relationship with this girl, who was of mixed Hispanic and Irish origins and came from from Starvation Lake on the NSW border. Ern would ‘go bush’ periodically from Melbourne via Silverton to see her during the late 1930′s. Their daughter, Penumbra O’Malley (she used her own idiosyncratic spelling of his name) was born during the twilight of Ern’s early death. He never new her. A paternal ancestor of Penumbra’s mother was one of several illegitimate children of Jose Reyes, Pablo Neruda’s father. A secret devotion to Neruda’s poetry was passed down in this branch of the family. This included an original but imperfect (some pages lost) early manuscript of ‘The Book of Questions’ . recovered from fascist raids on Neruda’s home in Madrid whilst he was consul there during the Spanish civil war. This is Penumbra’s response to some of these questions, found in a rusting tobacco tin in the old dump of a doggers hut on the dingo fence of Mulyungarie Station.

E.V. Malley is Mitchell Welch

Ernest Verne, devoted nephew of Ern, died tragically in his home. The exposure of his beloved uncle’s non-existence had left him doubting his own existence. After many years in a deep existential funk, EV Malley penned this poem and came to terms with the tools of his creation.

Act. Cotton Malley is Luke Beesley

Act C. MALLEY collects tennis chalk and zipless pencils, still. Reads a poem.

Omar O’Mally is Mark O’Flynn

Omar O’Mally lives in a house with a door.

A.D. Malley is Michael Sharkey

A(rthur) D(ransfield) Malley was the schoolteacher cousin of Ern Malley, descended on the distaff side from the Huguenot Raimbaux of St Chemin-de-Fer and the Sieur of Courland-sous-Penders. His parents migrated to Australia, first settling at Pascoe Vale (Vic), then Campsie (NSW), where A.D. Malley taught Art, Music, French and Elocution.

Jason Silver is Amelia Walker

“Three years ago I set out, quite innocently, to research a biography of recently deceased Australian poet, Jason Silver. I never suspected my actions would uncover perhaps the biggest scandal in Australian literature since the Ern Malley affair of 1944. The tale has, of course, been told to death by the tabloids so I shall here relate only the briefest possible version. Like Malley, Silver never existed in the flesh but was the creation of three other poets, Pete Lind, Shannon Woodford and Angie Rawkins. The trio met at the Red Lion Readings, a monthly poetry open mike that ran from 1998 to 2006 at the Red Lion Hotel in Elizabeth, one of Adelaide’s outer suburbs. Lind established the readings as well as the Red Lion Press, which published chapbooks by group members, Silver included. Silver supposedly suffered Bipolar Disorder and committed suicide in December 2005, aged 34. His collected works, released early 2006, received resounding praise until the deception – for I disagree with the term hoax – came to light. Afterwards, Silver’s poetry was dismissed as meaningless ramblings with too many quotes from other writers and musicians. The Red Lions were denigrated for their lax ethics, their lack of formal education and the performance-based nature of their writings. The attacks only ceased in the wake of another, unrelated scandal – the debates surrounding Friendly Street’s so-called “Porno Poet”. Three years on, the publication of this anthology may seem odd. Surely everybody has moved on? Yet this is precisely why it is time to re-examine Silver and the other Red Lions. Now the initial outrage no longer skews judgment it is possible to view these poems objectively and recognise their merits. Regretfully, this recognition may come too late for Lind, who ended his life in December 2007, aged 38. Before his death, Lind, along with the other Red Lions, adamantly rejected the comparisons between Jason Silver and Ern Malley. In his journal he wrote, “Jason was never meant to be uncovered. We weren’t out to make a fool of anybody, we just wanted to explore.” Whatever the poems were, whatever they were not, they are here. The decision now rests in the hands of readers.” (Harrison Lomax, June 2009, Foreword to ‘Sound and Bundy: an anthology of the Red Lion Poets’)

Gema de Malley is Cameron Griffiths

“I am the Spanish connection. I buried these poems a long time ago on a beach in the south of Spain. I recently dug them up – accidentally – while making a sandcastle.”