Klein went on to study political science, classics and economics as an undergraduate at McGill University. It was there that he met a group of poets and critics, including F. R. Scott and A. J. M. Smith, who would form the foundations of the so-called Montreal Group of Poets. Klein's first submission of a poem to the Scott and Smith-edited magazine, "The McGill Fortnightly Review", was rejected on the basis of its author's refusal to alter the word "soul," which the editors felt was out of step with the modernist principles they espoused. Klein nevertheless became friends with the elder poets and was soon an avid modernist himself. After the "Fortnightly Review" folded, Klein and Lewis founded "The McGilliad" magazine at McGill in 1930.