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20 January 1979

Wes McNair
North Sutton
New Hampshire

Dear Mr. McNair,

We understand that you have available for publication
a manuscript of poems, of which some have not yet
appeared in periodicals. Would you be willing to allow
us to represent you, as your literary agents, in placing
your poems in periodicals? We have had some success
recently with Mr. Gregory Orr of Earlysville, Virginia,
placing seven of his poems on our first attempts to be
literary agents. We feel that diversification will
increase our credibility. We also like your poems. We
also like sending out mail. We also imagine that by
retaining ten per cent of your earnings, we will be able
to pay our postage, take trips to Miami, etc….

If you would like us to proceed, we believe that we
can secure a copy of your manuscript from Mr. Donald Hall,
pry the staples from it, and use it for distribution.
Would you please tell us not only which of the poems
have been printed*, but which of the other poems have been
seen by which magazines. Thorough, complete, and
accurate records are essential, as we all know, in this
difficult world…

Yours truly,

J.A.
For Amaryllis Incorporated

*& where

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J.A. Amaryllis Incorporated
Box 71
Potter Place
New Hampshire 03265

Dear J.A.:

What an attractive letterhead you have chosen for your new
agency. And the color of the typeface, plant green, is just the right
thing.

I am of course flattered that Amaryllis Incorporated would
think of representing me as my literary agent. I hope that my poems
will contribute to the diversification which you say will increase
your credibility. Have you considered, by the way, the possibility
of a motto in those words? Credibility through diversification. I
see it as a logo, rising somewhat toward the viewer out of an
amaryllis bulb.

Anyway, about the poems. The ones that are as yet unpublished
are: The Bald Spot; Holding the Goat; When Superman Died in Springfield,
Vermont; Going Back to Elinore Quelch, A Ballad; The Poetic License;
Memory of North Suttob, rather, Sutton; and Country People. A
distinguished group, I’m sure you’ll agree. I think I sent TPL and
and MONS to the Iowa Review and the Ohio Review. These poems were also
sent to Poetry Northwest, along with TBS, CP, HTG and probably
WSDISV. Prairie Schooner saw some of the poems, but I’m not sure which.

Since it is difficult for me to send poems out after one or
two rejections, I am especially pleased to be your client. Needless to say,
I am also pleased that the day has finally come when a literary
agency has contacted me about my poems. After all these years of
obscurity, it is great to be famous.

Sincerely,

Wesley McNair

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Just got a rejection from U/Pittsburg Press.
My note (handwritten by Ed Ochester!) speaks
of “fine work here” and goes on to say that
“we have decided to go with other manuscripts,”
and that I should try the Press “again next
year if [my] book hasn’t been placed by then.”
The note brings back memories of another,
similar, rejection, sent me some months ago
by New Rivers Press, to whom I had mailed my
chapbook.

Since I figure I’m due soon for a
rejection from Yale, I’m writing to ask you
if you can think of any other publisher to whom
I might send the book. Do publishers generally
accept unsolicited manuscripts from poets?
I’m told there’s a NY agent named
Scott Meredith who is fairly reputable and
handles the work of many poets as well as
fiction writers. Do you know about this guy?

In my desperation, I’m up for any
suggestions – am beginning to fear that my

2/

“gratification” may be “delayed” forever.

Writing has been going well (up to today,
at least) and has been going steady and strong
for some time, thanks to your good influence.
I hope all is well with your writing – and with
Jane’s, in spite of her dismay on the night
we were at your house.

Down

Wes

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Dear Wes,

Well, it’s damned discouraging. You are good!
Eventually, more than 4 or 5 of us will get the
message. Many good people have been slow to
get published – Frost & Muir for two. Harper
& Row is unbearably slow. Of course the letter
from Ochester is hardly a bad sign – but one
needs more than good signs. I was quick off
the study block, an ambitious & precocious
child – but my first book was rejected 13
times before acceptance. Jane is going through a
patch of getting everything rejected from mags,
having been lucky earlier. She’s discouraged
too. I cannot remember if you have ever tried
Wesleyan. Are you at all interested in a small
press? I just had a pamphlet with BOA.

2/

You might try Galassi (Jonathan) at Houghton
Mifflin in the autumn, saying to J.G. that I
asked you to try him. Publishers don’t
generally accept anything – but some will &
do.

No reputable agent is
useful to a point. I can explain, if this is
obscure. I do use agents – but not for poems.

The writing – I don’t need to tell you – is
what matters. Keep getting better, & improve
the mss. every time it comes back, & you
will win through. As Jane & I always
quote to each other, from “Mary Hartman,”
: “Trust me! Trust me!”

Love to you both,

Don

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Dear Don –

I would be lost without you. Ever since
your generous recommendation that I be
invited to read at read at Marietta College, you
have sustained me as a writer. Your
advice, your bolstering of my confidence,
have quite literally kept me going.
These things are being written,
I’m convinced, somewhere in heaven.

Do you remember the cartoon of
the two doomed men, deep in the
dungeon, manacled to the wall by
hands and feet, a small window
far above their heads, one turning
to the other, saying, “Now here’s
my plan”? Now here’s my plan.
I have consulted my Coda Awards
List booklet and have found that

there are fully five publishers who invite
manuscripts in the fall. They are: Houghton
Mifflin, Wesleyan, U. Illinois, Princeton,
Carnegie Mellon. In addition, there is the
Walt Whitman Award Competition, ending
with the publication of the winning book
I have decided to mail my book to the five
publishers (or most of them) and to the
Walt Whitman Award Competition, and
to cover myself with telegrams in the
event of success with one of the above.
By the fall, I will have improved my
manuscript (as you suggest) in any
way possible.

What do you think? Specifically, what
do you think of the inclusion of U.
Illinois, Princeton and Carnegie Mellon
(esp. the last)? Would the book get enough
play if I were favored with acceptance
at any of these places?

Un million de gracias, as the Chileans
say, for all your help. You save my life.

Love,

Wes

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Wes McNair
Box 43
N. Sutton, NH 03260

Dear Wes,

Thank you for that good letter. If I have been a help, I am
delighted. And I don’t mean to be false
[Written in margin: ly modest]
about it: I have been a help!
But I am delighted to have been, and want to continue to be.

I like that cartoon. But I don’t think that your situation
is quite so desperate!

I think your saturation-bombing approach is excellent. And I
would indeed submit to all of these places. Including the Walt Whitman.
The University of Illinois is getting its books around. Princeton
does a very good job. Carnegie-Mellon makes very attractive books,
and mails them to people. I don’t think it would be a bad deal.
Heaven knows, Houghton Mifflin would be the best deal. And I will
mention things to Jon Galassi. But that means little. They will get
at least a thousand manuscripts.

So will most of the places. Which always makes it a lottery.

I have been doing some more thinking about small presses, not
with you in mind, but just in general. That phrase covers so many
different things. I would not publish with Ithaca House. I’m not sure,
really, that I would publish with New Rivers – but more likely. I would
publish with Sheep Meadow. Or with Alice James… First of all, I
would publish with Greywolf. Do you know of that? They publish Tess
Gallagher, and do lovely books. “They” is a young man named Scott Walker,
whom I met at the NBA thing about small presses, where Jane read her
poems. A terrific, energetic young man – who makes his living by
publishing poetry! Obviously, the secret ingredient in such a “living”
is, as Pound would put it, low overhead. But he does, doing everything
himself – editing, designing, overseeing the printing, distributions,
sales, wrapping packages…

I liked him enormously, his vigor and intelligence. He does not
think of himself as some sort of bush league. He just wrote me a letter,
saying – freshly, cockily – that if established poets really liked small
presses, how come they never made small presses their major publishers?

I think I was being solicited, but I am not certain.

I told him that I was very fond of Fran McCullough, and would stay
with her out of loyalty – something which I think will shock him; I think
that will sound to him like being loyal to General Motors. But he is not
prepared to be some sort of farm system. He wants to be the continuing
publisher of terrific poets who never leave his stable. Tess Gallagher
has had opportunities to go elsewhere, but she will stay with him.
[Written in margin: So far, anyway.]

Distribution for small presses is getting better and better. It is
probably not quite so good as big presses, but in many ways it is less
frustrating. The thing about a small press, when it is expertly run like

2/

this one, and a few others, is that the author benefits from the
absolute, total, undivided attention and commitment of the publisher.
I cannot say that for Harper & Row! Fran McCullough cares, but she
does not handle marketing, distribution, remaindering, advertising,
promotion, and wrapping packages, the way Scott Walker does.

All I am doing – with you, and I will do the same thing with
a few other people – is to recommend re-thinking the notion of
the big publishers and the little ones.

Best as ever,

Don

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Dear Don –

It has suddenly occurred to me that I never answered your
good letter about my book and where it might be published. This
lapse does not indicate my indifference – far from it. In fact,
I have taken your words so seriously, making them part
of a conversation with myself, that I’ve forgotten to communicate
with you about my responses.

In brief, then: While I would probably consider publishing
a second book of poetry – perhaps a second, smaller collection –
with a small press, I would rather place my first book
with a “name brand” publisher – a “GM,” to quote you.
It’s that I’ve spent years putting this collection together,
and I’d like to make the biggest splash possible with it.
In the event that I can’t find my GM, I’ll try the other
alternatives. And thanks, by the way, for putting the case
for publishing with the small press so clearly before me.

I’ve been working on a handful of poems – some of which
will appear in the revised^ as per your suggestion manuscript of my book. I
enclose two of the poems for the revised manuscript. I will
send others as they are finished. I’m pulling the two
“dirty poems” out of the book – they seem to break

2/

the tone of that section and the book as a whole – and I’m
changing certain sub-groupings and sub-headings.

You will be the first to see the final product. I write
so much and so little that I frustrate myself, and
everyone else, I fear. Still, I hope to have the new book
for you soon.

In the meantime, thanks for all of your encouragement.
I would be lost without it.

All the best to you and Jane,

Wes

DRIVING POEM

In the room
which makes trees go by
and grass run
along the edge of the slow
field and farmhouses turn
small and far away
revealing one
by one their windows

OLD TREES

By the road
in the field, they stand

lifting branches
they cannot remember,

rocking shut
in the wind.

In some other world
they grow such trunks

and hurled their leaves
across the sky.

Here, emptyhanded,
they wait

for the end which has been
happening for years.

Growing o’s
around telephone wires,

tethered to farmhouses,
the old trees.

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Wes McNair
Box 43
North Sutton, NH 03260

Dear Wes,

Good to have your letter. These are good poems. I have a couple
of questions. I guess I cannot quite see how they grow o’s. I can
see them growing over or under. I guess I can see one branch going over,
and another under, which do not touch but visually cross each other…
but an o seems too symmetrical, possibly? I love the cadence and
feeling of this poem, and then I am a bit disturbed by finding it
visually not exactly perceptible.

Again, I like the language of Driving Poem very very much – but
I am troubled by the syntax, wanting it to be a sentence and finding
no way to turn it into a sentence. Do I take it that the “room” is
the driver’s seat of the car? Or perhaps more accurately the car itself?
I might wonder about having a first line like: “This is the room…”

Joey would always like to have more poems to send out, if you
feel like it letting him.

I do have considerable hope that you will find your GM – or that
some decent GM will find you. And in fact, I have good hope for Harper
and Row. It does not mean any more than it says, but it is a fact
that Fran McCullough likes the manuscript very much. She wants to look
at it some more, and confirm herself in her feelings – and I don’t think
this is a sinister doubt. But the problem is elsewhere. It takes her
a long time, and a good deal of effort, to get a book of poems accepted
by the powers that be. The poetry-schedule is full up for a while.
She cannot even bring the subject up, to the powers that be, for a while.
And when she does, if she does decide to push your book as I hope and
mostly believe she will, the powers that be may not take to it,
or may feel that they cannot take on another books of poems at that time.
Therefore, you are to be pleased that she likes her work, you are to be
hopeful but not too hopeful, and you are to sit tight! OK?

None of which should deter you from going right ahead with revising
your manuscript and so forth. About the “dirty” poems, I too feel
ambivalent. I am not sure that they belong there – but I am not certain
that they don’t, either. Make your decision against them this time.
Be prepared, possibly for some argument on another occasion.

Best as ever,

Don

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August 29, 1979

Dear Don –

No, I have not seen work by Jenny Josephs,
but if you say she’s good, we are interested in
having her in September. Since readings by women
are often co-sponsored by the Women’s Studies
program here, I should have some bio material on
Ms. Josephs to pass around – and to use later
for publicity. It would be nice to have a poem or
two by her also.

I will have to check with others before I can
say “yes” absolutely. But a reading in September
does at this point seem quite likely.

Thanks for the suggestion – and please send
bio stuff as soon as possible –

Wes

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Dear Don,

Needless to say, I am pleased, delighted in fact, that Fran
McCullough likes my manuscript. I will do my best to be “not too hopeful,”
as you suggest, and I send renewed thanks for your persistence in this thing.
Your confidence in my poetry gives me more strength than you realize,
as I forge ahead through revision after revision.

And of course I am glad you like the two poems—disturbed, too,
about what you feel does not work in each. How do the trees grow o’s, you
ask. I meant to refer in that image to the o’s which telephone linesmen
often cut around telephone wires. Please let me know whether my explanation
makes you feel more comfortable with the image. You have me worried…

Perhaps you are right about the verbless-ness of “Driving Poem.” I
guess I was hoping that the verbs in the which clause would carry the
poem well enough, in spite of the unusual syntax. About your suggestion,
“This is the room…”: Do you think the line would stress the car more
than the driving which the title refers?

I am working hard on two longish poems called “The Thin Man” and
“Hair on Television,” both of which I would like to put into the revised
book. They would go into section one, along with “For My Father” and
“The Bald Spot,” so that the section would give a sort of overview of
the personal and some of the public concerns of the book’s narrator.
Section two would begin with “Old Trees” and would move to the other
regional poems of the present section one—i.e., “Fire in Enfield,”
“Leaving the Country House” and “Memory of Kuhre.” Each of those poems
contains a certain play of present and past—especially the latter—and
so they would lead logically to section three, which would include all
of the poems in the present sections two and three except for the “dirty
poems.” “Driving Poem” would fall just before “Country People,” the other
drivin g [sic] poem of the collection, in section five. The sections woud be
called “The Thin Man”(1); “Memory of Kuhre”(2); “Going Back to Fifth Grade”(3);
“The Faces of … (4); and “Country People”(5).

I hope you find that my revision strengthens the book, and I hope to
be able to show it to you before long. Thanks, as usual, for all of
your help and advice.

Love to both you & Jane,

Wes

P.S.: Please explain to Joey that I will be sending him
poems as soon as they are ready –

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Wes McNair
Box 43
North Sutton, NH 03260

Dear Wes,

Here is a book by Jenny, which includes reference to earlier
books, and a famous anthologized poem. I know that I have been in
anthology with her and that poem, and I cannot find it. Maybe – doubltess [sic] –
it is somewhere in the Colby-Sawyer library. But then, it is somewhere
in my library too, and I cannot find it. Jenny is a bit younger than I
am, and has done a lot of BBC stuff and journalism of one sort and
another, as well as the books of poems which are of course what she takes
most seriously.

As far as I can tell, there would only be two possible days,
the 27th or the 28th of September. She is visiting with her daughter,
and has a lot of things planned ahead of course, and I don’t think
that she could stay around or come back.

Let me know just as soon as you can, please.

Well, I am delighted about Fran’s initial response also, and I
know that I must not be “not too hopeful” and I hope to heaven you
know it also. Chances are, as ever, that we will not get what we both
want. But I hope that we do!

Don’t be disturbed about me feeling that things do not work. I
cannot remember ever having been wholly satisfied with anything by
anybody I know. [Written in margin: Or by me.]

I don’t feel more comfortable about that image with the o’s,
because I don’t know where the telephone linesman came from. I think
they have to be in there, cutting and making this unnatural, artificial,
man-made o. I was trying to imagine a natural one, which is what I felt
you had me imagining.

I don’t know whether the line would stress the car more than the
driving…I wasn’t particularly happy about the line that I suggested.
But I felt the lack of the bone, with the verb missing. I don’t think
that an incomplete sentence is really unusual syntax exactly. It didn’t
bother me as being peculiar or unusual or eccentric. It bothered me
as seeming somehow incomplete – I mean not just incomplete in the way
that it literally was. As lacking some essential organism to make it
thoroughly alive and vigorous.

I look forward to the two longish poems, heaven knows, and everything
else. Also to read the new order. I suspect that I will like it.
But it is hard for me to know without actually reading through it again
In the new way.

I told Joey and he says cool.

Love as ever,

Don

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Dear Don –

Thanks for your encouraging comments about
my poems.

You asked for fair copies of “The Thin Man”
and “Hair on Television.” I did send you copies –
at least I thought I did – of those two poems
in their revised form. In the event you did not
receive the copies of my later note expressing
the wish that they be sent on to The New Yorker,
here are two new copies and a new request –
to be relayed to Joey – that they be mailed
to the above magazine. Please tell Joey that in
exchange for his services (and his unshakeable
faith in my poems) I will gladly send postage and
envelopes at any time.

You will notice that the revision of my book,
a copy of which you have no doubt received by now,
is somewhat different from the revision I described
a couple of letters back. Again, I do hope you like
the new version.

Incidentally, I’ve never seen that Bly poem on hair.
Do you have a copy of it? Or where can I find it.

Wes

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Dear Don –

Jenny Joseph may have a reading at Colby
if she doesn’t mind a rather skimpy honorarium
of $50. The date and time: September 27 at
7:30 PM. I assume that the place will be
Alumnae lounge, where you read. I will let you
know soon.

I enclose a copy of “The Thin Man” – hope
you like it. I hope “Hair on Television” will
be ready soon.

More about the Joseph reading right away.
Please let me know if $50 is OK. Perhaps
I could get more if I were in charge
of reading this year, but I’m not, and $50
seems to be the limit.

Hello to Jane – Love,

Wes

THE THIN MAN
–Inside every fat man is a thin man trying to get out.

Once in a mirror
as it folded hair
back from its face

he discovered his eyes
lonely, yearning.
This was the beginning

of his life
inside the body,
of standing deep in the legs

of it,
held
in its elbowless arms.

And when it walked
he walked,
and when it slept

he dreamed of drowning
under its lakes
of skin.

Oh the thin man
trying to get out
learned of its great

locked breasts
its seamless chin,
the dead ends

of its hands.
And oh the heavy body
took him

to tables
of food,
and took him down

into the groaning
carnal bed.
The pitiless body took him

to a mirror
which showed
the eyes

in a face
immense and dying,
who he was.

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Dear Don –

Problems : I just got a note from the
Women’s Studies Co-ordinator here, whom I
had convinced to schedule a reading for
Jenny Josephs [sic] – and the note informed me
of a call she received from the Public
Information office about a serious conflict
On the 27th, the date she chose for
the Josephs’ [sic] reading. It turns out that
the 27th is the date of an art opening
and the alternative date for Mountain Day.

Unfortunately, a reading on the 28th
would conflict with the normal social
activities of a Friday night – few
students are likely to be on campus.

Under the circumstances, I can
think of only one thing to do: schedule
Ms. Josephs earlier in the week – or
early in the next week. Tuesday
the 25th is open, as is Monday the

2/

1st.

I guess the blame for all this is mine,
since I didn’t think to advise the
co-ordinator – who is brand new –
to examine the college calendar before
choosing a date. And I am very
sorry for the mix-up. But perhaps
we can make this work after all.

Please let me know if the 25th
or the 1st will work for you.

Yours in hope,

Wes

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Dear Wes,

Let’s just forget about a reading. Nobody should read for $50.

“The Thin Man” is just marvelous. I love it, and I think maybe
it is even one of your best. I have two suggestions, or one suggestion
and one query. The query is “yearning,” which seems to me a terribly
corny word, a word from greeting cards, and very dangerous to use,
especially so early in the poem. I wonder what you have thought about it –
if you have questioned it – if you think it might possibly be improved?
And on the other thing I feel more dogmatic: please remove the epigraph.
Everybody in the world has heard this business about a thin man being
inside every fat man…and therefore to use it as a epigraph is or appears
naïve. I mean, the statement itself is as commonplace as “hot enough
for you” or “it takes all kinds to make a world.” If you had a poem
about watermelons, you wouldn’t have as an epigraph that watermelons
are ninety-eight per cent water…or whatever. I mean to say, it has
the status of sort of commonplace information.

The poem exploits this commonplace information perfectly, and
when we come to the reference or allusion, within the poem, we are pre-
cisely ready for it – except if you have that epigraph there. In that
case, it kills the surprise and spoils the poem. When I say that the
poem is superb, I mean without the epigraph. I really do think the
epigraph acts like a dog with a hundred eyes, or maybe a hundred sets
of jaws, guarding the entrance and preventing anybody from getting in.

And it is a wonderful poem. What a superb ending.

If you are going to be over this way, could you perhaps drop off
the book by Jenny? Or mail it, as I mailed it to you, if you can not
get over.*

Best as ever,

Don

*Or you could leave it with the C-S
receptionist?

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I am extremely glad you like the poem, since I
was quite worried about it. I believe you about the
epigraph, I’m not sure about the word “yearning”
yet, but I’m thinking about it.

I hope you like the enclosed – please let me
know when you can. Both poems would be a
part of the revised book manuscript.

I’m sorry about the reading. If the coffers
were my own this year, I could perhaps have
dug deeper. Still, I appreciate the opportunity
you opened. I will mail the book tomorrow.

Today, at 4:55 PM, I am on my
way to the mail with this letter —

Thanks for everything —

Wes

HAIR ON TELEVISION

On the soap opera the doctor
explains to the young woman with cancer
that each day is beautiful.

Hair lifts from their heads
like clouds, like something to eat.

It is the hair of the married couple
getting in touch with their real feelings for the first time
on the talk show,

the hair of young people on the beach
drinking Cokes and falling in love.

And the man who took the laxative
and waters his garden
next day with the hose
wears the hair

so dark and wavy
even his grandchildren were amazed,
and the woman who never dreamed tampons
could be so convenient wears it.

For the hair is changing people’s lives.
It is growing like wheat above the faces

of game show contestants opening the doors
of new convertibles, of prominent businessmen opening
their hearts to Christ, and it is growing

straight back from the foreheads of vitamin exports,
detergent experts, dog food experts helping ordinary housewives discover

how be healthier, get clothes cleaner and serve
dogs meals they love in the hair.

And over and over on television the housewives,
and the news teams bringing all the news faster
and faster, and the new breed of cops winning the fight
against crime, are smiling, pleased to be at their best,

proud to be among the literally millions of Americans everywhere
who have tried the hair, compared the hair and will never go back
to life before the active, the caring, successful, the incredible hair.

[Click image to view]

Wes McNair
No. Sutton, NH

Dear Wes,

“Hair on Television” is absolutely marvelous. I think it is one
of the truly best. There are two problems with it, one of which you
cannot do anything about. I don’t think the poem is derivative at all,
but it might well be taken so, because of Bly on the subject of hair.
This poem, and you, will just have to weather that sort of thing. And
I’m delighted that you went right on into it, without any misgivings,
and did it! It is just wonderful!

The thing I don’t like about it, which you can do something about
if you will agree, is the look of it on the page. I think it is visually
ugly. I like total asymmetry sometimes, but this is not that, just has
a tendency to get longer as it goes down the page, and this looks
inadvertent, it looks therefore slack or thoughtless…visually only.
It doesn’t read that way. But the visual is as real as anything else.
I don’t mean to say its [sic] equally important, but every single little
thing is important. I find the line about two and a half inches up
from the bottom kind of long, for instance, and I think of rewriting
it to make it: “detergent and dogfood experts helping ordinary housewives
discover…” I don’t think you need the two “experts” and this would
move the line a little bit to the left… Then I would do similar
things at the end, or I might tend to take one of the earlier stanzas
which is four lines, and re-break into three lines, making them longer
lines… I do this sort of tampering with things in order to achieve
a visual coherence all the time – but of course I don’t want to do it
if I think it hurts the rhythm, the line-breaks, anything like that.
The whole business, as you well know, is simply to be perfect in every possible way!

Anyway, I do love it dearly. It seems to me that pretty soon it you
might be ready to send Joey for four new poems to make a batch for sending out.

About that other poem. Can’t you hear Bing Crosby singing the word
“yearning”? Tin Pan Alley. And the word also reminds me of the most
prosperous poet ever to emerge from Tin Pan Alley… I mean Rod McKuen.

But it’s not that bad.

I guess my notion is that nobody should ever offer a poet $50,
but instead should save up three $50 offers, or preferably four $50 offers,
and offer a poet $150 or $200. But I’m always getting crabby about this
sort of thing. Yesterday Scholastic Magazine called up, to ask me if I
was accepting their invitation to be on their Board… Some sort of Board
that would meet annually to talk about writing in high schools… I
pointed out to them that they had asked me two months ago, that I had
answered their letter asking them some questions, but I’d never heard
from them. Among other things, I wanted to know what they were paying me.
Well, umm…umm…they were not paying me anything. And I asked,
with my most vicious imitation of innocence, if Scholastic were a
non-profit organization? If they had stockholders? Had the stock-
holders ever received a dividend? And why did this idiot think that I
should donate my services to create profits for rich investors? Really,
people are always thinking that poets should give something away for nothing,
or almost nothing – and nobody ever asks the paper manufacturers to give
away the paper, or the ink makers to give away the ink!

None of this is directed to you, who are a poet and not a
rich investor! But it is my suggestion that it might be better not
to have poetry readings than to pay $50.

Best as ever,

Don

[Click image to view]

Dear Don,

I was very pleased to learn that you like “Hair on Television”.
That damn poem took me an eternity to finish…that is, to almost
finish. You were right to suggest the longer lines in the beginning
of the poem, and the shorter line in the fourth stanza from the end.
I send you the I think finished product.

I’m also enclosing the slightly revised version of “The Thin
Man”. At first I was reluctant to change “yearning”. I of course knew
that the word is often used in the rhymes of popular songs, etc. — that
it is a “corny” word–but I thought, or sensed, that its very corniness
lent a kind of comedy to the thin man’s predicament…rather like
the comedy–the grim humor–that the shopworn word “doomed” provides
in my poem “The Bald Spot” (It peers/ out from hair/ like the face/
of a doomed man…). but I am convinced now that my judgement [sic] was
faulty. The word doesn’t read as I had wanted it to, and besides, along-
side “lonely”, it suggests that the thin man’s problem is romantic,
and it shouldn’t. The replacement word “earnest” connotes a consciousness
that is serious and unaware of irony–the appropriate consciousness
for the thin man, I think. The “lonely”, accenting the seriousness
of the thin man, and perhaps the seriousness with which he takes
himself, helps achieve the sort of comedy I want. And I
like that “earnest” reminds me of accounts of idealistic young men
just beginning their lives (esp. as used with “lonely”), since I want
the thin man to “age” in the course of the poem.

Tomorrow I’ll have decided to scratch the line and start again.
But today I’m sure of it, and of the above reasons for it.

You mentioned a batch of four poems for Joey. How well you
keep track of these things! I am still stuck on “Driving Poem”–how to
write is as a complete sentence. I simply cannot find a satisfactory
alternative to what I have now, though I think you are right that what
I have should be revised. I’m still thinking about “Old Trees”, too,
and an alternative for the “growing o’s” of that poem is even harder
to find, perhaps because I wrote the whole poem around that image,
of which I was so sure…I am not worried about “DP”, only about
“Old Trees”, which I very much wanted to use in my revised book–
which I would very much like to type and ship out. And so I hope
for a solution soon.

Please let me know you responses to the enclosed. I am
glad you have liked these things, and even gladder that you have
managed to write to me about them so quickly after you
received them. Thanks for everything,
Wes

P.S. – I have decided to send the revised manuscript to : Harper & Row,
Houghton Mifflin (if they approve of a “sampler” of my poems which
I submitted earlier), Wesleyan and The Walt Whitman Award contest.
I am also beginning to think that since “Hair on Television”,
“The Thin Man” and “The Bald Spot” – all of which contain
humor and have a ^more or less “pop” feel – will introduce the revised
book (along with “for my Father”), the two porno/pop
poems, feel more appropriate now. So I may include them after all!
As I see it now, there are many poems which are like
“The Little Lonely Comic [?]” and “The Characters of Forgotten Dirty Jokes”,
even though they (the other poems) are not dirty. There are the
three I’ve mentioned, especially “Hair on Television,” and there
are others, such as, “The Thugs of Old Comics,” “The
Poetic License,” “Rufus Porter by Himself” and “Thinking
about Carrevale’s Wife.”

HAIR ON TELEVISION

On the soap opera the doctor
explains to the young woman with cancer
that each day is beautiful.

Hair lifts from their heads
like clouds, like something to eat.

It is the hair of the married couple
getting in touch with their real feelings for the first time
on the talk show,

the hair of young people on the beach
drinking Cokes and falling in love.

And the man who took laxative and waters his garden
next day with the hose wears the hair

so dark and wavy even his grandchildren are amazed
and the woman who never dreamed tampons
could be so convenient wears it.

For the hair is changing people’s lives.
It is growing like wheat above the faces

of game show contestants opening the doors
of new convertibles, of prominent businessmen opening
their hearts to Christ, and it is growing

straight back from the foreheads of vitamin experts,
detergent and dog food experts helping ordinary housewives discover

how to be healthier, get clothes cleaner and serve
dogs meals they love in the hair.

And over and over on television the housewives,
and the news teams bringing all the news faster
and faster, and the new breed of cops winning the fight
against crime, are smiling, pleased to be at their best,

proud to be among the literally millions of Americans everywhere
who have tried the hair, compared the hair and will never go back
to life before the active, the caring, the successful, the incredible hair.

THE THIN MAN

Once in a mirror
as it folded hair
back from its face

he discovered his eyes
earnest, lonely.
This was the beginning

of his life
inside the body,
of standing deep in the legs

of it,
held
in its elbowless arms.

And when it walked
he walked,
and when it slept

he dreamed of drowning
under its lakes
of skin.

Oh the thin man
trying to get out
learned of its great

locked breasts,
its seamless chin,
the dead ends

of its hands.
And oh the heavy body
took him

to tables
of food,
and took him down

into the groaning
carnal bed.
The pitiless body took him

to a mirror
which showed
the eyes

in a face
immense and dying,
who he was.

[Click image to view]

Wes McNair
Box 43
No. Sutton, NH 03260

Dear Wes,

I really love the new poems – as I tend to love everything that
you do, occasionally with one or two words to disagree about. I think
that “The Thin Man” and “Hair on Television” are wonderful. “Hair on
Television” will always be visually ugly, to me, and probably to some
few other finicky people – but not to many. And for me, of course, the
wonderfulness of it otherwise is compensatory. I mentioned before that
Bly’s disquisitions on hair are obviously going to occur to anybody
who reads the poem, who is au courant. I say this because I suspect that it will
be irritatingly true that magazine editors will object to that. But I
could be wrong about that too.

How about sending over some Fair Copies for Joey to send out?
You can send them to me, because I see him practically every day. He
is back from the VA hospital now, and I cannot see that the operation made
much difference…

But I mentioned this before, and it is probably wise to wait until
you are satisfied with the other two, in order to have a bunch of four to
send out.

Your remarks about the revised manuscripts, and where you are sending
it, sound just fine. I hope that there will be reason to withdraw your
manuscript from various Wesleyans and Award contests… But there is not
yet, and there may – we have to say this, of course – never be.

Best as ever,

Don

[Click image to view]

Dear Joey –

Will you please tell Don to send out
the 2 poems which are ready – ie.
‘Hair on Television” and “The Thin Man” –
preferably to the New Yorker?

All the best,

Wes

[Click image to view]

Dear Don –

This is a copy of the revised book. I am about to
submit it to Dartmouth College for further
duplication. I do hope you like it.

You may be interested that I will be sending
the revised book to Wesleyan and to the
Walt Whitman Award contest. And of course
I will be sending you another copy for submission
at Harper and Row, still my most hoped for
GM. (if you think the submission should be
made right away, please pass on your copy –
the enclosed.)

Please let me know what you think of this –

Best from Diane & me,

Wes

P.S. Our slide show & dinner is coming soon!
more about this later.

[Click image to view]

Dear Donald –

I have the most wonderful news : I just
received word from Senator Durkin’s office in Washington
that (while official word is yet forthcoming) I have
won a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
for Creative Writers. The Fellowship is for $10,000
and should free up a bit of time for writing and
travel.

It is an award that is given (as you may know)
for “quality of writing.” The judges, many of whom
are poets, review I guess hundreds of submissions
in poetry – each submission is 15 pages in length.
I sent them no golden oldies – all the poems
were quite recent – and this makes me feel
even better about getting the award…makes me
feel, that is, that newer stuff is as reliable
as the better examples of the old.

I am writing this letter somewhere in outer
space. It is all floaty and nice up here.
It is just great to know others think you can
write!

Weightlessly,

Wes

[Click image to view]

Wes McNair
Dept. of English
Colby-Sawyer College
New London, NH 03260

Dear Wes,

It is kind of maddening of me to admit this, but I cannot stop
from doing it: I have known that glorious secret for about two
months. But I was sworn to secrecy (which I will retain) and I
like to be somebody you can count on. I was bursting to tell
you, but I had promised that I would not tell you. But it was a
great pleasure for me, to hold that inside, and to think that you
would be hearing about it one of these days. The person who was
the chairman of that committee, which gave you the award, the
chairman of the literature committee of the NEA, or something like
that was…Frances McCullough! You might say, your fellowship is
not a bad sign in coming (partly) from an editor as well as from
other poets.

I know those fellowships well, and most of my friends – the
older ones, that is – have had one. Jane tried this year, and
apparently did not. I tried years ago, twice in a row, and got
turned down. But back then they were only worth three or four
thousand dollars anyway. What are you going to do? My only, very
faint distaste about all this is that I bet you will be off next
autumn, when I am teaching. Well, I cannot complain. I’m absolutely
delighted, and I hope that you translate those dollars into poems,
with a little leisure, time to read, time to take walks – such as
you have never had, or not for twenty years or so. I’m really so
happy for you I cannot tell you.

Joey has the word. Actually, there are some poems at the New
Yorker right now. The New Yorker saw a few last spring, and by the
time they had decided not to take them, it was too late to send them
other ones – so they had to wait until this autumn. Joey will hold
[Written in margin: i.e. they close down all summer for poems]
onto these until he hears from The New Yorker about the ones that
The New Yorker already has. And by the way, Joey just made his second
sale to that magazine.

Joey needed fair copies of the two poems because he doesn’t
like to steal Donald’s. And Donald’s, as a matter of fact, were residing
together with your letter in a box which will achieve the immortality
of files at the University of New Hampshire.

Joey says send no stamps, he will just keep ten per cent, like
all the other agents.

The Bly poem is one of his best known, from his best known book,
Sleepers Joining Hands. I assumed you would know it.

2/

I have not had time to read the new manuscript. In the last
few days, I have mailed a two-thousand word article to The Nation,
a book review; a treatment of “film” for a textbook; and a three-
thousand word article on Robert Giroux for the New York Times Book
Review. I have finished drafting six thousand words for Country Journal,
twenty-thousand words of an Appendix for a textbook, and a three-thousand
word introduction to the textbook… I have been writing twenty to
thirty pages a day, and revising earlier draft on the same days. And
next week I go away for five days, four reading in four nights. Life
is full, you might say.

I would like to keep this copy. Why don’t you send a copy
– after it returns from Dartmouth College, further duplicated – to
Fran McCullough at Harper & Row, telling her you have added a
bit and updated a bit. …And asking her how she likes the changes.
She is, by the way, a very clever intuitive editor for such things.
She helped me quite a bit with the structure of Kicking the Leaves.
I say “intuitive” because she finds it hard to tell why she thinks
what she thinks. But once she really thinks something, one does
well to pay attention.

I really look forward to reading the revision, and new poems,
and everything…but the thing I look forward to the most is your time
off from teaching because of this new fellowship!

Love as ever,

Don