{"id":212,"date":"2011-05-18T16:01:46","date_gmt":"2011-05-18T20:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/copycscmcnair\/"},"modified":"2011-11-04T10:40:14","modified_gmt":"2011-11-04T14:40:14","slug":"follow-up-questions","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/copycscmcnair\/script-my-life-as-a-poet\/follow-up-questions\/","title":{"rendered":"Follow-Up Questions to “My Life as a Poet”"},"content":{"rendered":"

1.<\/strong>\u00a0 Did any parts of this story contradict your notion of what a poet\u2019s or writer\u2019s life is like? Which parts, and in what ways?<\/p>\n

2.<\/strong>\u00a0 In your view, what were the most important experiences in McNair\u2019s formation as a poet?<\/p>\n

3. <\/strong>\u00a0In what ways did Wesley McNair\u2019s family background contribute to his development as a poet?<\/p>\n

4.<\/strong>\u00a0 How do the poems titled \u201cAfter My Stepfather\u2019s Death,\u201d \u201cShovels,\u201d \u201cThe Good-Boy Suit,\u201d and \u201cHow I Became a Poet\u201d (all available in the book Lovers of the Lost<\/em>) relate to the hardships of McNair\u2019s childhood, and what insights about those hardships have the poems led him to?<\/p>\n

5. <\/strong>\u00a0How do the poems titled \u201cThe Last Time Shorty Towers Fetched the Cows,\u201d \u201cMute,\u201d and \u201cGhosts\u201d (all available in the book Lovers of the Lost<\/em>) relate to McNair\u2019s experience as a teenager working on his stepfather\u2019s farm and the Kuhre farm in the Connecticut River Valley? In the conclusion of his poem \u201cKuhre\u2019s Farm,\u201d what insights does he convey about the farm in the history of his region, and what thoughts does he convey about the farm\u2019s influence on his own life?<\/p>\n

6.<\/strong>\u00a0 What aspects of the poems titled \u201cHair on Television,\u201d \u201cThe Before People,\u201d \u201cSmoking,\u201d and \u201cThe Last Black and White TV\u201d relate to McNair\u2019s life experience, and what do they say about the values of American life?<\/p>\n

7.<\/strong>\u00a0 What are the books McNair completed before his first published book, and how did each contribute to his development as a poet?<\/p>\n

8.<\/strong>\u00a0 In what ways do the poems McNair completed when he was seventeen anticipate his work as a poet, in their content or approach?<\/p>\n

9.<\/strong>\u00a0 In what specific ways did Donald Hall help McNair as a mentor? How did he shed light on the life of a poet in his long letter of encouragement that McNair quoted?<\/p>\n

10.<\/strong>\u00a0 Explain McNair\u2019s process of writing a poem. In what ways does that process adjust your previous notion of the way poets work?<\/p>\n

11.\u00a0 <\/strong>In the summary of his work, McNair referred to his poems that reveal the mystery of common things. Choose a few poems that illustrate this theme and explain your choices.<\/p>\n

12. <\/strong>What are the most important lessons about the writer\u2019s life that you take away from this presentation?<\/p>\n

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\n <\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1.\u00a0 Did any parts of this story contradict your notion of what a poet\u2019s or writer\u2019s life is like? Which parts, and in what ways? 2.\u00a0 In your view, what were the most important experiences in McNair\u2019s formation as a poet? 3. \u00a0In what ways did Wesley McNair\u2019s family background contribute to his development as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":681,"featured_media":0,"parent":82,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/copycscmcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/212"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/copycscmcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/copycscmcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/copycscmcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/681"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/copycscmcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/copycscmcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":486,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/copycscmcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/212\/revisions\/486"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/copycscmcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/82"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/copycscmcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}