This poem is true to one of my concerns then and now - heedless destruction of the environment. The tragedy of the Exxon Valdiz was still 14 years in the future - foreseeable in one form or another to anyone with open eyes. Profits make it easy for many to walk with a white cane.

Sometime in March or early April, 1975, I had sent off two poems for consideration by a local poetry magazine. A letter of rejection was received, dated April 7th.

“The Day The Rains Came” centred around the biblical flood, told as a reminiscence by someone as the rains start falling. Interwoven paragraphs contrasted a previous drought and its consequences with the start of the rains. The words were deliberately those of a common person, and in keeping with the drought, dry. They liked the rhythmic patterns I had created, but thought the language was pervaded with cliche - which it was, but that was half the point.

“The Dragon” was a “simple” exercise of writing in a traditional style - fixed meter and rhyme scheme in a time when Tolkien was king to many undergraduates - Lord Of The Rings was commonly read and discussed, certainly among many at Sydney University in the mid 70’s. The criticism was that it was too “jingly” and derivative, as merely versification. I’m happy to wear the derivative, but jingly versification? Oh, like Shakespeare and Keats, Gerard Manly Hopkins and Wilfred Owens? I guess I’d wear that too, had it been intended, and had the verse been worthy. It wasn’t, but I didn’t think it was trash either.

Well, it was their magazine, not mine, so I bought a copy, ruminated on the stylistic things they had accepted and, presumably, admired. Then I wrote “The Fish.” It’s a poem I have some pride in, because it said a little about something that is important to me and should be important to others. Had I not been angry enough to think “them’s fighting words” in response to the previous rejection, I might have written a different poem in response, which would also likely have been rejected. So I set out to write something that I was fairly certain they would accept. To prove to myself that I could write to a target audience.

I don’t remember how much time I spent writing it, but it can’t have taken long. Because the reject slip was dated on the 7th, a Monday. At best I would have received it that evening, more likely it would have taken 24 hours to get to me, perhaps 48. The poem was conceived, written, edited, typed, and sent off. The acceptance letter is dated the following Monday, 14th of April. I’d made my point, but I expect it was over their heads!

Sadly, karma had the final word. The magazine went under financially before the edition containing “The Fish” was published. So no published poem, no payment of the princely sum of $2 at the time, but that would probably get you several litres of petrol back then. Perhaps the moral was that the audience wanted something different from what the editors were publishing. Perhaps they wanted something “jingly.”