These were heady times for poetry and Henry advised me it would do us no harm to attend a poetry conference. ‘It’s the beauty-parade part of the business,’ he said as he gave me an apologetic smile.

We contrived to attend ‘Raw Directions ’74’ at Dunmore University in Sydney where, sitting high in the back row of an auditorium, we listened to the dispute of experts who were arrayed behind a bench in the well-lit pit of the chamber. Some speakers were poets, some were junior academics, and the ‘New Surge’ view of the art of poetry—Go on your nerve, man—was well represented. One seat was vacant where a poet called Dennis Vaigh had failed to show.