Maxwell Henley Harris AO (13 April 1921 – 13 January 1995), generally known as Max Harris, was an Australian poet, critic, columnist, commentator, publisher, and bookseller. Early life Harris was born in Adelaide, South Australia, and raised in the city of Mount Gambier, where his father was based as a travelling salesman. His early poetry was published in the children's pages of The Sunday Mail. He continued to write poetry through his secondary schooling after winning a scholarship to St Peter's College, Adelaide. By the time he began attending the University of Adelaide, he was already known as a poet and intellectual. In 1941, he edited two editions of the student newspaper On Dit. Angry Penguins Harris's passion for poetry and modernism were driving forces behind the creation in 1940 of a literary journal called Angry Penguins. His co-founders were D.B. "Sam" Kerr, Paul G. Pfeiffer and Geoffrey Dutton. The first issue attracted the interest of Melbourne lawyer and arts patron John Reed, who offered to collaborate on publishing further issues. Harris, already trying to establish a South Australian branch of the Contemporary Art Society, was lured to the Reeds' art enclave at Heide. By the second issue of Angry Penguins, Harris had incorporated visual art into the journal. Sidney Nolan later joined the editorial team. Other artists associated with Angry Penguins include Albert Tucker, Joy Hester, James Gleeson, Arthur Boyd and John Perceval. Traditionalist poets were outraged by the success of Angry Penguins with its promotion of surrealism and publication of progressive writers such as Dylan Thomas, Gabriel García Márquez, James Dickey and the American poet Harry Roskolenko. The poet and critic A. D. Hope was among those virulently opposed to Harris and the modernists. Hope inspired two young poets serving in the army, Harold Stewart and James McAuley, to "get Maxy". Under the name of "Ern Malley", the pair crafted a series of poems in the modernist style and submitted them to Harris at Angry Penguins. Harris thought the poems brilliant and published them with some fanfare in Angry Penguins. The poems were controversial but well received. However, police in South Australia interpreted some lines in the poetry as lewd (one poem used the word "incestuous") and Harris was charged with obscenity. Reed and Harris, who were by this time also publishing books, employed a detective to discover more about the mystery poet. Word emerged that Ern Malley