A Deepening

[Click image to view]

Wes McNair
No. Sutton, NH

Dear Wes,

If Howard Dinin writes, I will be
pleased to hear from him – but I won’t be
able to send him anything, not at least
for quite a while. I really believe in
keeping things around two or three
years before you send them out. I don’t
always do it, especially when a book is
due. But I have not sent anything out
since Kicking the Leaves, and I probably
won’t for another six months or perhaps
twelve months. I have things that are
probably finished. Well, they’re probably
not, really – but they might as well be.
They haven’t yet gone through the Ordeal
by Friendship, wherein I send them to all
my friends who lacerate them. I’m about to
start doing that, with a few of them.

But I have thought dimly of sending
some things out this spring but I think I
probably won’t until next autumn. And
then I have a list of magazines that I
promised to send things to. Therefore, it
will be a while. But I will probably make
it eventually, if I live long enough, and
I look forward to it. I also look forward
to seeing you guys next week. Terrific.

2/

I think what you’re doing with the book is
sensible. …Though you know what I hope.

Best as ever,

Don

[Click image to view]

Dear Don-

I enclose a mini-poem which I hope you like well
enough to pass on to Joey. Also: there are three
poems which I hope Joey will be willing to remove
from circulation – namely, “The Man,” “Country People,”
and “Memory of North Sutton.” Howard Dinin would like
to claim them for The Boston Monthly, would you please
ask Joey about this? It was good to see you both on Wednesday.
Diane will surely never have a better audience for
her slides from Chile. How great it was to share them
with you!

I have now started String too Short to be Saved,
a book which I cannot help liking, it reminds me
so much of my own early experiences on farms.
More about that later.

Best to you both,

Wes

[Click image to view]

Dear Mr. Amaryllis,

Thanks very much for sending the
poems by Mr. McNair. We do like them, and
are glad to keep

“The Poetic License”
“The Bald Spot”.

I hope Mr. McNair does not have
a book publication deadline coming up
soon? Poems accepted now aren’t likely
to be published until fall—what with our
backlog.

Might be a good idea to put Mr. McNair’s
name on his MSS.? “The art of losing isn’t
hard to master…”, as Eliz. Bishop sings.

With all best wishes,

Sincerely yours,
John Frederick Nims
22 January 1980

Notice of Acceptance

The Editors of Poetry are pleased to accept the
following for publication:

THE POETIC LICENSE
THE BALD SPOT

Wesley McNair
c/o Amaryllis, Incorporated
Box 71
Potter Place, NH 03265

[Click image to view]

Wes McNair
Dept. of English
Colby-Sawyer College
New London, NH 03257

Dear Wes,

Thanks for the mini-poem. It is an absolutely magnificent
idea, it will be a marvelous poem – and I don’t think it is
quite yet finished. I think that there is a certain awkwardness,
and haste, perhaps, about the end of the poem. I don’t think
we should have a comma after “now.” I think that “the guilt
about their weight,” seems awkward in its little words. And
I know that “fade like a dream,” is the most total of cliches.
And things get a little clichetic further on. “Steaming with
food,” and “appetizing,” and is “seen” the right word? I like
the third line from the end. I like the second line from the
end pretty well – I think the last line is OK but I think it
could be a whole lot better. I wish you would keep it around
a little longer, the way you tend to do anyway, and intensify
or freshen the last half or third of the poem. It is a marvelous
notion! Dear to my heart!

Fine for removing those three poems from circulation –
after they come back from the places where they are currently
being read. Be sure that Howard Dinin waits for Joey’s release.
It would be embarrassing – for you, for Amaryllis, Inc. – if
these poems were taken by another magazine, and then Joey had
to say that they were not available. Be certain about this,
please.

I had a good letter from Howard Dinin, and I will be in
touch with him shortly.

We had a lovely time with you, also, and loved the photographs.

I’m glad that you are enjoying String. Did you see that
my children’s book took the Caldecott? We will be able to
build the new bathroom!

Love to you both,

[Click image to view]

Dear Don,

Your letter of January 29 contains the worst
message I have ever received in the mail. I
am upset that you will no longer handle my poems.
But I am immeasurably more upset that I have
managed to hurt you and no doubt Jane
so terribly.

The least I owe you is an account of the
circumstances which led to my January 21st
letter to you. First of all, I sent the three
poems to Howard Dinin as a result of his
rather desperate request that I give him
some work related to the idea of “home” for
his first issue of The Boston Monthly, which
was short of material. There is no good
excuse for not letting you know about my
decision to send Howard the poems; I can
only tell you that since it was nine months

2/

after I had given the poems to you, I did not take
seriously the possibility that they might be
published by someone else. Needless to say, I
should have taken that possibility seriously. To make
matters worse, I let the whole thing slide until I had
forgotten it. I did not think about the poems again until
the night of our dinner, when it came up that I had
published in The Boston Monthly. You said you hoped none
of the poems were in the batch Joey had, and I said
“no,” seeing the seriousness of my lapse, and lacking
the courage to be forthright with you and face the
loss of your esteem. Afterward, I sent my letter,
which contained the “duplicity” you have
mentioned, and which took my lack of
courage one step further.

I cannot blame you for responding as you have.
You are wrong to imagine that I might “conceal
and equivocate” as a matter of course in my
dealings with editors, though I can easily
understand why you would so imagine. Ironically,

3/

the equivocation I have been guilty of with you,
a friend and mentor, I have not practiced with
anyone else. The only time I came even close
was when I allowed the woman from The Concord
Monitor to quote “The Thin Man,” assuming,
naïvely, that quoting a poem within an article
was not tantamount to publication of the poem.
That I have treated you in this careless
and dishonest way, failing to be straight
with you until the moment I was forced to,
is a thing that I will never forgive myself
for. I am entirely unable to square my
behavior with the appreciation and
generous support which you and Jane have
given me – without which I might well
have lost faith in my writing. I can
only determine at this point that I will
use what has happened to instruct me in
how to be more forthright in the future

2/

with others,
especially those I respect and love.

I remain deeply grateful for all that you
have done for me. I am profoundly sorry that I
have handled this thing so poorly.

Sincerely,

Wes

[Click image to view]

Wes McNair
Box 43
N. Sutton, NH 03260

Dear Wes,

Thank you for writing as you did. I am sorry to be
the source, or the effective cause, of such unhappiness.
This too will pass, and in the meantime – as you say so
eloquently – something has happened to be learned from.

Although Joey did not do terribly well for you, certain
things may be opening up. No sign of interest from New Yorker,
but I think that things are quite chaotic there right now, and
I would not be too discouraged about it. When you write new
things, I think you ought to try them there. Hayden
Carruth has shown an interest in your work, and I think you
ought to try again. When you write him with new poems, do
remind him that I showed him some earlier – because I did
it in my own person.

However, do be terribly careful, please, not ever to
mention the connection between Joey and me.
[Written in margin: to anyone.] It would be a
matter of great embarrassment to me if any of these poetry
editors, some of whom I know under my own name!, realized
that I was corresponding with them under another.

As I sent out the poems, many magazines took forever
to answer. (One of them was Poetry, by the way, with the
first batch; and then they did take two later. So these long
delays were perhaps not all a waste of time.) But the minute
they came back, I sent them out again the same day. So the
notion that nine months meant that you should not take seriously
the possibility that you might be published…well, obviously
I think that was a very strange thought. Or it was a strange
thought that you would then feel free to publish them elsewhere
without letting me know, while I was still madly sending them
out…

But I need not repeat myself, I realize! Your remorse
is bad enough, and there’s no point in rehearsing things.

I take it that the two poems which Poetry ^has taken have not been
published elsewhere. …I do know that your publication of
“The Thin Man” in the Concord Monitor was only naïve. …The
thing to remember is that publishing is publishing, period.
That there is nothing which is tantamount to this or tantamount
to that. All they are interested in is whether something has

2/

been published or not.

Now for that matter, I merely generalize. If you
send “The Thin Man” out again, to other magazines, I suggest
that you always tell the editor that it appeared in a news-
paper interview in a newspaper called the Concord Monitor
with a circulation of blah blah blah. Somebody may take it
anyway. Certainly some small magazine, with a small circulation,
would feel free to take it. Or quite possibly the Boston
Monthly might feel free to take it. I merely mean that if
the New Yorker had taken it, where it was sitting while it
appeared in the Concord Monitor, the New Yorker would def-
initely have gone back on its acceptance. And that most of
the self-respecting quarterlies and monthlies – Atlantic,
Poetry, etc. – would not take it after it appeared in the
Concord Monitor, if they knew about it.

For that matter, the Harvard Magazine would take it.
And just to prove to you that my regard and high wishes
for your work continues intact, may I please have The Thin Man
for the Harvard Magazine, when it comes back from the Virginia
Quarterly? I do not mind reprinting from the Concord Monitor.

May I?

Don

[Click image to view]

Dear Don,

Thank you for your good and kind letter. Of course
you may have “The Thin Man” for Harvard Magazine.
That you would request the poem lifts me somewhat
from the gloom of the past days. I feel extraordinarily
blessed to have your faith and good will.

Needless to say, I am grateful for your
continuous mailings and remailings of my poems,
and for your suggestions about my own
future mailings. I thank you especially for placing the
two poems in Poetry. Ever since I began writing
poetry ten years ago, I have wanted to appear
in that magazine. Having poems accepted by
John Nims is especially meaningful to me,
since he once encouraged me in my writing
at Bread Loaf. (I took a class called “The
Craft of Poetry” with Nims when I was
getting my M.A.) You may be absolutely sure
that the poems Nims accepted have not been
published in, or sent to, any other magazine
or newspaper whatsoever.

Last week, I sent a note to Nims, thanking
him for taking the poems and reminding him of

2/

our association at Bread Loaf. Even as I wrote,
I was unable to glory much in the acceptance,
it was so intermixed with the awful problems
I had created for us both. After reading your
letter, I am beginning to feel better about it.

Thanks once again for the kindness you
Have shown.

Wes

P.S. I have just read in The Argus of
your Caldecott Medal. What a wonderful
children’s book “The Ox-Cart Man” must
have made, especially with “primitive”
illustrations – just the right thing!
Congratulations!

[Click image to view]

Wes McNair
Box 43
N. Sutton, NH 03260

Dear Wes,

Could you send me a copy of “The Thin Man”? It has
not returned, and it is possible that it will not.

And for that matter, why don’t we go back to working
with Joey again. I am over my heat, and it is obvious
that this Bad Accident will never come near either one of
us again. Let us just start in. But when you send me
back the poems – for sending out – would you please tell
me again where they have been? That is, would you repeat
my information to you? I buried all the old records in
my correspondence box, which is now anonymous among rows
of boxes up in the Dark Hole upstairs. So I need to know
where they have been, and I would not necessarily remember.

I hope that by the time the two poems come out in
Poetry you will really be able to feel good about them.

Yes, the Caldecott was good news. So many great ideas,
when you are free-lance writing, fall apart and bring in no
mortgage-helpers. But then something like this happens, and
it is a little annuity for several years. Believe me, I did
not think of the writing only in terms of money! …but I guess
I think of the Caldecott mostly in terms of money!

Best, as ever,

Don

[Click image to view]

A quick answer to your question
about “Old Trees.” It has not been
sent or published anywhere.

Thanks for your kind words about it -–

Wes

[Click image to view]

Dear Don,

Given my tendency toward maudlinity, I do not trust myself to
elaborate on the respect and gratitude I feel upon learning of your
(and Joey’s) offer to send out my poems. So I will limit my response
to a simple thank you, hoping that both you and Joey will know my
thank you is most deeply felt.

You asked me to tell you where the enclosed poems have been sent.
According to your letter, “Holding the Goat” and “When Superman Died”
have been rejected by the New Yorker, Paris Review and Poetry; “Going
Back to Elinore Quelch” has been rejected by the New Yorker, Poetry,
Paris Review, Atlantic, Virginia Quarterly Review, Harper’s and The
Nation; and “The Thin Man” and “Hair on Television” have been rejected
by the New Yorker. One more thing you should know is that last Monday
(having waited three weeks after you wrote to withdraw “Hair on
Television” from editorial consideration) I sent “Hair on Television”
to American Poetry Review. Should “Hair on Television” be returned
unpublished, rest assured that I will send it immediately to Joey.

Incidentally, I wish you would please tell me what percentage
of the pay from Poetry Joey should have when my poems are published there.
I seem to recollect ten percent, but perhaps it was more…

In the enclosed batch is a revision of “Old Trees”, which I do
hope you like. I have changed the length of the poem’s stanzas from
two lines to three, and I’ve changed an image that you once questioned.
The poem feels better to me, but I would very much like to have
your response. Would you write me about it when you have a spare moment?

I still await word from “the contests” – the Walt Whitman Award,
the National Poetry Contest, the Yale Younger Poets – and from the
Pitt Poetry Series. Don’t know if I told you that Wesleyan rejected
the book. I’m preparing myself for the possible depression of spring!

In the meantime, I’ve brought a “five-subject notebook” to
continue with old poems and new^inprogress. Perhaps I will have more
to send soon.

Thank you again,

Wes

[Click image to view]

Dear Don,

I believe I forgot to send in my last letter
the copy of “The Thin Man” you requested.
Here it is!

Saludos,

Wes

[Click image to view]

Wes McNair
Box 43
North Sutton, NH 03260

Dear Wes,

Thanks for the manuscripts, and the letter. I think
that Old Trees is just marvelous. Very very beautiful, and
the rhythm in the new lineation is just wonderful. …And I
believe that this one has been published before, has it not?
I think you would mentioned it [sic], if it had not been. If it has
not been, please let me know right away. (Well, please let
me know anyway, because I think I will hold up on sending out
the three available poems until I heard from you about this
one for sure.)

Delighted to have The Thin Man for Harvard Magazine.
It will take a while before it comes out, I am afraid.

Agents get ten per cent, and Joey is no exception.

Good luck with the contests – and expect nothing! I talked
to Fran yesterday, and she has not yet settled on a new publishing
house, but I expect that she will soon.

Fine about having sent “Hair on Television” to the APR.
Let me know what happens, either way.

Best as ever,

Don

[Click image to view]

Dear Don,

Just in case I didn’t make this clear
on the hastily written postcard I sent
you today – I would very much like Joey
to have “Old Trees.” And neither of you
need worry about my sending poems to
Danbury that have been sent elsewhere,
since I will not be sending poems elsewhere.

I am just delighted that you like the
poem. I wish I had more to send.
And the fact is, I do have lots of
stuff in the notebooks, but none of it is
ready yet.

Anyway, I keep working and hoping.
In the meantime, thanks for your
comments about “Old Trees,” and for
your interest in suggesting it to Joey.

Wes

[Click image to view]

Wes McNair
Box 43
N. Sutton, NH 03260

Dear Wes,

I take it that this is not only not
been printed anywhere, but also not been sent
anywhere, not even to the New Yorker? I do
want to try the New Yorker with it. Two
words on a postcard: “Not sent.” And off it
goes.

Love as ever,

Don

[Click image to view]

Dear Don,

I want you know how much I like your book
String Too Short To Be Saved. I feel close to many
of the book’s characters because you make me feel
close to them, but also because I myself met people
like them in my experiences on farms in the Cornish
and Meridian area during the 1950’s.

I especially like the way the concluding chapter,
“Out of the Garden” manages to recapitulate earlier
themes as it states its own. The last sentence of
“Out of the Garden” is breathtaking. Still, my
favorite chapter is “The Blueberry Picking.” I have
read few things in my life so good as that reminiscence
is. It is so deeply metaphoric and yet so natural
and “real” in the experience it relates. And
what feeling one senses in the speaker as he looks
back upon the boy self in his “Thirst,” and upon
the old man who hopes the boy will “remember.”
I am just dazed by that piece.

Reading String Too Short (wonderful, wonderful title!)

2/

made me return to Kicking the Leaves to discover
new meanings in the poems of that collection.
All over again I love “Kicking the leaves”, “Flies”,
“The Black Faced Sheep,” “The Ox Cart Man,”
“Names of Horses.” I also went back to The
Alligator Bride to reread some of my favorite
poems in that – or any other – collection: “The Days,”
“The Stump,” “The Old Pilot,” “New Hampshire,”
“The Repeated Shapes,” “The Man in the Dead Machine,”
etc. And I saw for the first time how often you
are in poetry what you call yourself in String
Too Short – an “elegist.”

How wonderful it has been to read this book
and your other books through it! Now Diane
has String Too Short, and no one can tear
her away from it. (She, too, visited farmer
relations in New Hampshire when she was a girl.)
She joins me in thanking you for the book. It
is wonderful to know that a person whose work
I like so much likes my work, too!

Love,

Wes

P.S. I include “Hair on Television” for Joey’s collection
of my poems. It was rejected by APR –

[Click image to view]

Wes McNair
Box 43
N. Sutton, NH 03260

Dear Wes,

Many thanks for the letter and the poem.

Probably you know that Jim Wright died
yesterday morning. He had cancer, and would
only have suffered terribly for a few months,
if the cancer had taken its predicted course.
Pneumonia cut him off. I was with him last
Saturday, and it was terrible. I was with him
two weeks before also. Jim knew he was going
to die, when I saw him Saturday. Sometime I
will tell you about it. It is difficult to
talk about.

I’m terribly pleased that you like String
so much, and that it led you back to the poems
and that they held up too. Thank you so much
for telling me! I saw Diane yesterday and she
told me about reading String.

I need these things! Don’t we all.

I will be putting “Hair on Television”
to good use, I hope.

Best as ever,

Don

[Click image to view]

Dear Don,

I was sorry to learn of James Wright’s death. It must have been
a very tough thing for you. Has there been any news of it in the press?
I have not read of it anywhere outside of your letter.

I came to Wright’s poetry late, though I did encounter the
Eisenhower/Franco poem (can’t remember the title exactly, and can’t
find the poem) earlier on, and I still remember the thrill of reading it.
I saw the Wright poems in your Contemporary American Poetry early, too,
but it was much later that I got to his books. Needless to say, he has
left many beautiful poems behind.

You are quite welcome to compliments about String Too Short To Be
Saved. And about the poems. I realize now that I did not mention
in my letter one of my favorite poems from The Alligator Bride – I
mean “Mount Kearsage”. Ever since you did your reading at Colby, that
poems has stuck with me. I can still hear the way you said its
wonderful last line, “blue ghost”. I often think of that poem as I
drift downward towards Crockett’s Corners from Colby and that mountain
rises before me.

Incidentally, I heard not long ago from Fran McCullough, who
sent my manuscript back saying she had hoped to publish it with
Harper and Row, but now could not and did not expect to be able to –
since it was a first book – with any of the houses she might join in
the future. I was pleased that she had taken the manuscript seriously
enough to advocate its publication, though, obviously, I was
disappointed to have it returned. I do appreciate all your help in
bringing the book to her attention. Who knows but before too long
your opinion of the book will be vindicated. Though you have warned
me to “expect nothing”, I can’t help hoping.

I am beginning to worry that you did not receive a copy of the
new-improved “Fat Enter Heaven”, since I have not heard from you
about it. I believe you were off somewhere doing a reading when I
sent the copy, so perhaps you never saw it. Anyway, I enclose another
copy for your perusal.

Diane tells me to say she has finished String and loved it.

Best from us both,

Wes

[Click image to view]

Wes McNair
Box 43
N. Sutton, NH 03260

Dear Wes,

Thanks for the letter. Sorry I had not mentioned
receiving this. I love it, and it is with the New Yorker.
I did not show it to Jane before, so I took the opportunity
to show her this. As I knew she would, she enjoys adores it. I
think maybe you get better and better!

Sorry to be the one to have to tell you about Jim Wright’s
death. I guess there had been no news of it in the Globe
or any place. It will hit the poetry press in all the next
issues! There was a long obituary in the New York Times.

I am sorry that Fran is no longer able to consider
the manuscript at Harper & Row! I guess she had to send
it back, because she is going away for two months now, to
Europe and India, and she has not signed on with any new
house. And also, as she says, the scene in New York is absolutely
horrible.

Did you not send a sample into Houghton Mifflin, and
Jon Galassi? You probably told me what happened, but I
cannot remember. Refresh me please. I have a tremendous
habit of forgetting things, which I like to think is somewhat-
deliberate, as a way of dealing with seventy-nine different
items in the course of every day that I live. It is probably
my excuse for incipient senility.

I do have some other notions about the book, but nothing
that I can be concrete about right now, and nothing to be
excited about. But I keep it in mind!

Best to you both as ever,

Don

[Click image to view]

Dear Don,

You asked in your recent note whether I
had sent poems to Houghton Mifflin. The answer
is yes. I mailed five poems to the readers
for the “New Poetry Series,” to no avail.
I did not mention your name (as you earlier
said I might) because that seemed inappropriate
in an open competition: Perhaps I chose the
wrong five poems…I can always
rationalize that way.

More bad news yesterday. I got my rejection
from the National Poetry Series. At the
bottom of their form letter was a note
(unsigned) informing me that I had sent
“good work.” I don’t feel much heartened
by that, but I suppose it’s better than nothing.

I do appreciate your continuing faith
in the publish-ability of the book. You
lift my spirits every time I’m down about

2/

its fate! In spite of your wise
injunction to “expect nothing,” I am now
hoping for a good word from the Pitt Poetry
Series. You will remember that Ed Ochester
asked me to resubmit my manuscript
there this year, having turned it down last
year. I should hear by June.

I am enormously pleased that you like
“The Fat Enter Heaven” and that Jane
likes it. I have been working on a longer
“fat poem” for some time now, and on
other poems, but I am so slow I almost
lose patience with myself.

Next week I go to Detroit to lecture
on Winslow Homer at the joint meeting of the
Popular Culture and American Culture Associations.
That will perhaps provide the brief respite I
need to jar some poems loose!

Love to you and Jane,

Wes

[Click image to view]

Wes McNair
Box 43
N. Sutton, NH 03260

Dear Wes,

Thanks for your note, though I’m sorry to hear the dis-
couraging news. It is simply a bad time for publishing a
book. And it may be a bad time forever, with the big publishers
in New York and Boston. I think I told you that my first book
was rejected thirteen times before it was accepted – and that
was a time when publishers were almost looking for new poets,
at least compared to now. Fran’s firing was a real blow to me,
to my optimism about things. I will keep looking and keep
thinking. When I see Jon Galassi – who is the editor at
Houghton Mifflin, but who has an assistant who reads most of
the poems that come in – I will approach him cautiously, and
that might be worth trying again. But any one possibility is
always an improbability. Meanwhile, we will get the poems into
some good magazines, and in the long run I think that will go.

Have a terrific time at Detroit. I spent seventeen years
only forty miles away. And there is a good art museum and a
good ballpark, and otherwise it is a pretty depressing and
depressed place.

Best as ever,

Don

[Click image to view]

Dear Don,

How lovely to receive your poems in
the mail. How much I am enjoying
them! I have read them already several
times.

I am writing this letter to thank
you for them – and to let you know
that though I will not be sending them
immediately, I will certainly be
“working on them.” I always need time
to let poems settle – my own or
anyone else’s.

I promise a letter about them
soon – am taking them with me
to Detroit and will be back with
a full response. Thank you again
for letting me see them.

Love,

Wes

[Click image to view]

Dear Don,

Finally I find the time to write you about the poems
you sent!

I do like them — all of them — very much. I believe
that “6 October 1980” is one of the most moving poems
you ever wrote, so complicated and profound are the
feelings of sonship which it expresses. It is a
wonderful thing. “Epithalamion” is also a wonderful
poem. The “positioning” of each of your reluctant
characters is perfect — Emily in the cellar “vanishing
against a pillar” (just the right word, that
“against”!) and Walt in the belltower with
the muscular young sexton. I love that piece. And
I love “Sonnet.” The last stanza of that poem is
just delicious in its sounds and imagery. I
believe that “Marbles,” “A Novel in Two Volumes,”
and “Scenic View” are also good, strong poems.

I have suggestions about how certain aspects
of the other poems might be revised – suggestions
which I hope will be helpful. One of my favorite
poems in its potential^”Poultry” is still, I think, not
quite finished. I very much like the way seasons
turn throughout the poem, the way the life and death
of poultry suggests to both boy participant and
adult narrator the transcience [sic] of human life. What
I feel the poem needs is a fuller reference to Luther…
or perhaps references to people other than Luther, who

2/

were alive once to eat the meals the poultry made, and who
are now dead. Without more allusions to Luther (at the
table, “leading in the singing of “hymns”, your word noted on
page 4? with others?) the poem’s conclusion seems to me
arbitrary. I do find the descriptions of chicks, chickens
and roosters most convincing, however…I love the
rooster section. One other question: In the 4th
stanza, should the phrase “when the egg making frenzy”
be changed to a phrase which more closely approximates
the other indented phrases of the section, which seem to
convey the continuous action of the hens in time
(moving toward “consumed”)?

About “The Glass.” If I have your intentions right:
it seems to me the poem should be presented in 3 stanzas.
I think the first stanza should speak of the world of
“permanence”; the second stanza, about the speaker’s
“heroic” movement through time, which leads to reading
the news about Emily Farr’s death; the third stanza,
about the glass. I especially like the image of the “old
man carrying buckets/among pale ferns under
wavering birches,” and I do believe this poem could
be quite wonderful, even though it is not (or so I
think) fully realized at this point.

“Fires for Tending.” I feel the poem should begin

3/

with the reading of the obituaries. The prologue of the first
three lines gives so strong an emphasis to the comfortable
domestic rituals and environment of the narrator’s
present that the movement into the past does not
achieve the importance that I believe it ought to have
in the poem. I feel that if the first 3 lines were cast
and the ordering were changed slightly, the narrator would
read his news, recollect the experience of the past,
and return to the surroundings of his present life,
feeling his old attachment to them, along with an
unsettling detachment. (This tension between attachment
and detachment comes through wonderfully well, I think,
in the last 2 lines.) Another thing about the conclusion:
I feel that the story should not be characterized as
“ordinary,” since that characterization stills the reverberations
that the memory might have. Incidentally, I wonder if
the full-out statement declaration of the last stanza – the “I
will preserve” should be replaced with a phrasing
which stresses the struggle against the fact of
forgetting…or against “the forgetful kingdom of death,”
as J.C. Ransom called it. I don’t mean to suggest
that the “struggle” should be expressed in any dramatic way –
only that it might be hinted at… I do hope I
have not written here about a poem which I might
write, rather than about the poem which this one might
become.

4/

“Whip Poor Will.” I feel that the last line of the poem
should refer somehow to the whip-poor-will’s “voice-lessness”
during the day. Stilling the bird’s song would be a bitter
way, I think, to bring the narrator and reader back to the
“real” world of the last stanza. Also, I like your
penned-in lines “but the real/bird lifts away”
better than the 1st and 2nd lines that appear in
the typed version of the last stanza. I wonder, too,
if the whip-poor-will’s flight into “far dark fields”
in the stanza one might be more strongly linked with
the bird’s flight into the narrator’s dream, which is
suggested in stanza two. The possible link between the
two seems to be cut off by the rooster’s crowing and
by the light of the second stanza. I think that the
“cock-crow” should be cut out, and that the darkness
of stanza one should extend into stanza 2, at least
until the reader is able to catch the connection
between the flight into dark fields and the flight
into the mind. The light, then, might foreshadow
the awakening to “reality” which eventually happens –
even as it (the light) suggests Wesley Wells,
who began his day at dawn.

If I have misread your intentions anywhere
with my suggestions recommendations, I am sorry. I certainly want
to be a help to you and not a hindrance. I feel this

5/

is a very strong group of poems, and I thank you
very much for letting me see them.

But no more ado. I must get this into
the mail!

With love,

Wes
[McNair]

[Click image to view]

Wes McNair
N. Sutton, NH 03260

Dear Wes,

Many thanks for your good long letter about the poems.
I’m delighted that you like the “6 October…” I sent these
out to a good number of people, and I guess that most of
the people whose opinion I respect like this one best. It
goes over big at poetry readings! (Believe me, I do say
that with the sense of the ghoulish…) And Robert Bly thinks
it is probably one of the worst ones ever written, etc. I
sort of knew he would. He is crazy about anything connected
with my father… I mean sort of insane. Still, you have to
wonder… I am really glad that you like it.

I take most seriously your suggestions about revision
And will keep them with the poems to keep looking at your
Suggestions. I know that the Chickens poem will change.

I am not quite sure what seems unrealized in “The
Glass” now. You wanted me to break the first stanza into
two parts, but you did not make any other suggestions. Can
you make any further suggestions about this one? I really
think that your suggestions about Tending Fire are going to
save that poem, which I have felt slipping away from me…
That is, a lot of people have felt that the end of it was
too domestic or comfortable – and I couldn’t quite see that –
but now I see why it is, as I believe anyway – because of
the first three lines.

And I think you are really helping with remaking the
Whip-Poor-Will also – which needs it!

I will show you some more in time – and of course I
will show you these again when I straighten them out or
attempt to.

Thank you so much!

As ever,

Don

[Click image to view]

Dear Don,

Hoping that I might hear something positive from U.
Pittsburg about my book, I have held off writing to you
until now. You will remember that last year Ed Ochester
at Pittsburg asked me to resubmit my manuscript this
year. Well, the thing got rejected again. Ochester
said he liked the “Going Back to 5th Grade” sections
and “Faces of Americans,” and he re-invited me to
resubmit next year.

Weary of resubmitting – also to Yale, where the
book was also rejected – I am quite down about things
right now. I did not realize, I guess, how difficult
publishing the book was going to be. And yet I should
not be ungrateful, I know. I am very lucky to have
the NEA grant, and besides, others have tried longer
than I have so far to get books published, with no
better results. I will certainly come out of this,
eventually. I have put entirely too much stock in
the Pittsburg possibility – that is the problem. I am
in the process of resolving really and truly not to
“expect” in the future.

The thing to do now, I guess, is to send the book
to other places. Would it do any good at all to

2/

send it to places like Viking, Doubleday and Knopf?
That is, would these houses be likely to even read an
unsolicited first book of poems? I suppose you will
say “no” to this, and anyway, I am thinking
mainly of university presses for the book – Illinois,
Princeton and Carnegie-Mellon – if you think these
are good choices. Should I mail it to U. Georgia,
where Paul Zimmer now is? My main interest at this
point is in being published at a press whose books
are likely to be reviewed widely – and picked up
later by anthologies.

Earlier, you mentioned the possibility of Houghton
Mifflin. I do intend to send HM poems for
review in the fall, the procedure for those who wish
to qualify for consideration in the “New Poetry”
series. Since I have little confidence in my own
capacity to choose the “review” poems (my choices
last year, you may recall, led to my being
disqualified), I wonder if you would mind suggesting
poems to send when the time comes? I would
appreciate your help here, though of course I realize
that whatever help one gets, (to use your words) “it’s
a lottery.”

3/

I am happy with the writing I am doing now,
in spite of my current depression. (As I write
of “depression,” it comes to me that last night
I dreamed all night of falling – an interesting
new expression of the vertical metaphor which I
seem to write about so much!) I have decided
that I will not trouble you with the individual
poems I complete, as I have done in the past-
that I will send you small batches of poems instead.
My first batch is not yet ready, but I am writing
daily and steadily, and you shall see results in
due time.

There is, after all, no one whose opinion I value
more – or half as much – as yours. It is my
extraordinary luck that you have been there
with concern and encouragement, even in the
most discouraging times. That gives me hope
that the long wait will one day prove worthwhile.
I am everlastingly grateful for your faith
in my poems.

Love,

Wes

[Click image to view]

Wes McNair
Box 43
N. Sutton, NH 03260

Dear Wes,

These feeling [sic] simply do not end! Believe me I am
sympathetic with your feelings, but let me tell you that
when you have published a book – which you will – nothing
will happen; or at least it will seem that nothing has
happened. And this would be true whether it were published
by New Rivers or Atheneum. Even if something happens, then
you realize that the “something” is truly nothing. And
after you have published eight books of poems, you are still
convinced that no one has read you, and that probably you
are no good anyway. Or at least you are convinced of that
frequently. I have been going through quite a bad patch,
in my feelings about my own ability, my past work, and cer-
tainly my present work.

There is only one place, or one moment, in which one
finds happiness, and it is always momentary – because that
is the moment of actual writing, and of course that is not
always true.

So I do two things: I assure you that you will publish;
and I tell you that it will not make any difference! But I
do have a third thing to say: it makes a difference to me!

In connection with your own book, I am pursing two
distant notions, neither of which is worth talking about
at the moment.

I wish I could tell you the names of people at Viking,
Doubleday, and Knopf to write to. I don’t think it is
useful to send them a manuscript. You might write a letter,
tell them where you have printed, about the NEA – and ask
them if they would care to see a manuscript. Most publishers
do not read manuscripts that come over the transom any more.
Harper & Row used to, when Fran was there – and now it has
stopped.

I think that the University of Georgia with Zimmer is
a good idea, and why not Illinois, Princeton, and Carnegie-
Mellon?

At the University of Illinois Press, please address
the book to Lawrence Liebermann, and tell him that I asked
you to send it to him. [Written in margin: check spelling!]

I’ll be happy to talk with you about which poems to
send Houghton Mifflin, when the time comes.

2/

If you are happy with the writing that you are doing
now – as you mentioned – you are as happy as a poet can
get!

Fine to see small batches of poems. You won’t hear
much from Joey for the nonce, because summer is a bad time
for submitting things, and a slow time for hearing about
things.

Best as ever, and just keep to the bench, as the
scientists say,

Don

[Click image to view]

Dear Don,

Thank you for your bracing letter. I have mailed the book to
U. Illinois and Carnegie-Mellon–am about to mail it to U. Georgia. I have
also sent several letters about the book to the “big houses”, as you advised.
Needless to say, I am thankful that my publishing the book matters to you,
whatever the consequences might be, and I take hope in your assurance that
I will one day publish it. I will try to remember your warning about the
irony underlying all apparent successes for the writer.

You mentioned that you are in a period of uncertainty about your own
work. Perhaps this is a good time to tell you the story of a poem you wrote
not long ago which hit me like the dropped safe of the old cartoon, and
which helped me to write a poem–and later other poems–like it, even though
different from it.

I am speaking of your “Waterfowl” poem, which appeared on the back page
of APR 4 or 5 years ago. I believed then, and still believe, that no one
has written a funnier poem than that one. I loved its reliance on sources
in the popular culture. I loved how reckless and how wonderfully controlled
it was in its form and in its humor. And I was struck by its wonderful mixture
of humor and desperate seriousness. I read the poem shortly before I wrote
“The Thugs of Old Comics”. It was your poem and certain poems by Edward
Field that I thought of as I was doing “The Thugs”. Without your poem, I may
never have been able to complete my poem.

I am sure your poem also helped open the way to other humorous “pop-
cultural” pieces which I have worked on since “The Thugs”, and continue to
work on. While it is true that I wrote “The Little Louey Comic” and “The
Characters of Forgotten Dirty Jokes” before writing “The Thugs”, I did not
see the full possibilities of “pop” poems until your poem, Field’s poems
and the writing of “The Thugs”. Do you remember telling me once (and how
thrilled I was!) that “The Thugs” was the “perfect poem”, the poem “The
Little Louey Comic” wanted to become? What you did not know was that your
poem assisted in the completion of “The Thugs”, helping me to go beyond
“Louey”, and later to write poems like “Hair on Television” and one I am
doing now on “before/after” ads.

Of course, your poems about the region of [inserted: northern] New England are also very
important to me as a writer. They show me that solid work can still be done
about the place which inspired the poems of Dickinson, Robinson and Frost,
and they fill me with possibilities for my own regional writing. But I wanted
to write you here about a poem which actually influenced my writing, and
besides, I have written already how much I think of Kicking the Leaves,
whatever doubts you may have about your recent writing.

I hope I managed to lift your spirits a bit with this small
testimonial. Even if I haven’t, I thank you very much for that poem and for
writing it at the time I needed it!

Love,

Wes

[Click image to view]

Dear Don,

I’m not sure which “Superman” poem you ask about,
since there are two. One (“The Thugs…”) has been published.
the other (“When Superman Died…”) has not. If you
meant “When Superman Died,” I’ll be glad to send it
right away – just let me know!

You’ve no doubt noticed that I’m including two recent
poems which you haven’t seen. I was planning to send
them later for your “judgement,” [sic] but something’s come up.
I’ve just received a letter from Peter Davison, whom I
wrote to ask about publishing Going Back Poems through
Atlantic Monthly Press. He said no to that, but I wants
me [sic] to send him some poems to look at for The Atlantic
Monthly. I would like to send the enclosed two, if you
think they are reasonably OK, along with two which Joey
currently has – ie, “Old Trees” and “The Fat Enter
Heaven.” Oh – maybe also “Hair on Television.”

But I will certainly not give Davison any of
the Joey poems unless he says they are available,
and unless you think it advisable to send these
particular ones. It may well be that Joey has hopes

2/

for them elsewhere – or maybe you feel that they (or
the enclosed 2) are not appropriate for The Atlantic.
Whatever, I await your view of all this.

Incidentally these 2 are not the only poems I’ve
finished recently. I’ve written two others, but I
am holding onto those because I’ve come to feel that
they might become segments of another poem. I will
certainly be sending these poems and others in some
future batch.

Thanks for your help!

Love,

Wes

[Click image to view]

Wes McNair
Box 43
North Sutton, NH 03260

Dear Wes,

It is when Superman Died that I need. Thank you and
sorry.

Davison saw quite a few poems that Joey sent him,
and he rejected them. As it happens, he did not see the
three that you mentioned: Old Trees, The Fat Enter Heaven,
and Here on Television [sic]. (He would not like the last. But
he might like the first two.)

But they are at the moment out at another magazine.

I will send them to him when they come back, if they
come back. Earlier, although they were addressed to him –
and although Davison has bought poems by other of Joey’s
clients – the poems were rejected by Mary Jo Salter, who
reads for him, and therefore I am not even certain that he
reads them. But he may have done.
[Written in margin: Almost certain – or they would have had slips.]

Anyway, I will send those to him when they come back –
but I think it ought to be Joey who does the sending. I think
you ought to be consistent, or we ought to be – I don’t think
that some poems should come directly from you and others from
Joey Amaryllis.

I think that Calling Harold is finished, perfect, and
wonderful!

I think that The Fat People of the Old Days is a wonderful
idea, and ought to be terrific – but I think that it is
awkward and unfinished, and I think it would be a real mistake
to send it out now. That is, I think it will be better a
few months from now.

I don’t really believe in epigraphs very much. This
is a funny saying, but then it appears to be the saying of
the author’s child, and therefore he is saying “Look at what
a cute child I’ve got!” Often they are appeals to authority.
Sometimes they give off an appearance of diffidence. I really
don’t like this one, even though I like the line itself of
course. I don’t think it has much to do with the poem.

Then I think that the language of the poem is slack
here and there, but that the center of it is just pure gold.
I think that “driving some mad.” can be better, because
after all this is a cliche, to be driven mad, and nothing
imaginative about it. I love the notion of knuckles and
elbows sinking into dimples, but then I’m bewildered by the
prepositional clause that follows. It is obvious that it is

2/

dimples of fat. But then you say “of the fat.” And I am
lost. In fact, that generic “the fat,” detaching the phenomenon
from people, seems to me probably a mistake. I like the man.
I like the responsibility. I like the fathers folding it
in their pants – but I don’t like “through the cold which/
always was.” The expressions seems to me kind of glib there
and I realize it is a reference to the epigraph. But I don’t
need either. But There is nothing wrong with mentioning the
cold: I just think that this way of mentioning it seems
as if it intended to be clever.

I love the wide doors and the passing the potatoes!
But I don’t’ like the “long/vowels of wind…” because there
are no calories in vowels at all – unless you put them there.
I mean, if it were the “buttery/vowels…”…or something.
But “the long/ vowels of wind” just sounds poetical, kind
of a puff of poetical smoke. Then I don’t think it really
ends as well as it might. Partly I think this is the syntax.
The poem ends with two simple declarative sentences, short
lines, brief sentences… It seems kind of staccato or tight-
lipped, here at the end. I think it ought to get better!

And I do, indeed, think it is yet one more marvelous
poem – almost.

Love as ever,

Don

[Click image to view]

Dear Don,

Foiled again. I had thought the “Fat” poem was
finished. But you have convinced me that I should wait
and try it again later.

You mentioned that I should probably drop the
epigraph. I am troubled by this because the
epigraph provides background for the stanza

Others saw the fat
Was their responsibility

(remember the fat people “had to be fat because it was
cold”). I can perhaps write about “cold”
without the epigraph – or leave cold out entirely –
but I can’t see how to make the above stanza
work without it (the epigraph).

Maybe I could kill the above stanza, but I’d
hate to.

Anyway, I am pleased to have your comments
on the poem, and I will be sure to read them
again when the time comes to re-revise. If

2/

anything comes to mind re: the comments I’ve made
here, please let me know.

In the meantime, I am sending you “Calling
Harold,” grateful that you liked it and found it
complete, however small the poem may be. I
guess I will just write Peter Davison and tell
him I have passed on his request for poems
to the Amaryllis agency, which handles my
poems. Does this seem right? Then Joey
can do what he wants to do about it.

I am also sending “When Superman Died.”
Thanks for clarifying.

Will you please tell Jane that E.V. Griffith,
Editor of Poetry Now, is looking for poems
for an anthology called Poets Now, “an
anthology of 80 new poets who seem likely to
win growing recognition in the decade ahead.”
The deadline for submissions is November 30.
Griffith’s address is 3118 K Street, Eureka,
California 95501. He’s asking for 10-15
poems from each submitting poet.

3/

As you may have guessed, I am interested
in submitting poems to Griffith, especially
since he has accepted work of mine in the past,
for both Hearse and Poetry Now. I have not
submitted yet, because I’m not sure whether I
or Joey should do it. I’ve been thinking of
mailing Griffith Going Back Poems – the whole
book – so he’ll have plenty to choose from.
If Joey feels the submission should be made
through the agency, I’ll simply send him a copy
of the book, complete with envelope and stamps.

Please ask him about this. Thanks for everything.

Love,

Wes

[Click image to view]

Wes McNair
North Sutton, NH

Dear Wes,

Well, you could keep the epigraph but drop the
ascription – which would at least stop it from seeming to
be that business of the author quoting his own kid. Or
you could build the epigraph into a stanza, maybe. Or – I
really think – the poem could hold up without it, including
the parts that you quote.

Do write to Peter Davison to tell him that he will
receive your poems from the folks down at Amaryllis…

It does seem typical of Griffith that he would be
able to conceive of the notion that eighty poets will “win
growing recognition in the decade ahead!” How absurd. There
are not eighty poets in American literature! There were not
eighty poets in the Elizabethan Age!

I don’t think that anybody is going to read the
anthology much… But I don’t
think it will hurt you to be in it. I would send him only
poems which have previously been printed. It would be absolutely
crazy to waste an unprinted poem on him. Therefore I would
not send the whole book. You could just remove the unpublished
poems from it. If you like, just go ahead and do that.

Best,

Don

[Click image to view]

Dear Don,

My response to your recent letter has been delayed because I’ve
been away for a couple of days. But it is good to have your advice
about E.V. Griffith and your comments about the fat poem.

I will be careful not to send Griffith anything unpublished,
and I will certainly revise the fat poem, keeping your suggestions
in mind as I do so. I’m still not sure what I will do about the
poem’s epigraph. You are certainly right about the ascription,
I’ve come to feel, and you may well be right about leaving the
whole business out. Later on, I will perhaps be able to see more
clearly what is needed.

In the meantime, the sending-out of the manuscript continues.
Viking and Random House responded positively to my preliminary letter,
the same one I sent Atlantic Monthly Press and others, and so I’ve
just sent copies of the book to them.

As always, I shall keep you informed about whatever may develop.
I hope your writing goes well, and that you are keeping cool in
spite of our heavy humidity which no rain seems to lighten.

Best,

Wes

[Click image to view]

10 August

The first day of Autumn!
I’m glad you’re sending
the book around. Joey
has the poem out of
course – but August
is pretty dead. (I
love it.) I’m moving
6,000-7,000 books,
reorganizing. Never again!

Love,
Don

[Click image to view]

Dear Don,

I am worried about the enclosed poem.
Will you please tell me if it is any good?

Thanks,
Wes

THE RETARDED CHILDREN PLAY BASEBALL

The girl with mild eyes stands
with both feet on first base,
and the shortstop smiles at nothing
he can remember exactly.
Now the soft-faced boy on second
raises his hands, making the precise shape
of a ball. The ball
is already over the outfield.
Some are watching it fall,
an outfielder, the astonished batter
beginning to run. Slowly they see
it is time to wave their arms
and let their voices go. Slowly, joyfully,
the fielders are hurling their gloves,
and the batters are jumping
higher and higher in this moment
for which they have come,
this forgetting so complete
they do not know why they are shouting.

[Click image to view]

Dear Don,

Yes, a later revision of the poem I just
sent. Nor does this revision rid me of
apprehensions – though I do think the title (my original one)
is better, along with the description of the
second baseman, and the fielders with their gloves.

Here it is anyway, with apologies
for the confusion I’m causing.

Love,

Wes

P.S. (August 31) – Diane told me
yesterday of your congratulations and of
the significance of “placement” in
Poetry. Both things make me very happy.
And they remind me that I owe
Joey $6.00_, which I send with profoundest
gratitude to both of you.

THE SLOW CHILDREN PLAY BASEBALL

The girl with mild eyes stands
with both feet on first base,
and the shortstop smiles at nothing
he can remember exactly.
Now the large-faced boy on second
raises his hands, making the precise shape
of a ball. The ball
is already over the outfield.
Some are watching it fall,
an outfielder, the astonished batter
beginning to run. Slowly they see
it is time to wave their arms
and let their voices go. Slowly, joyfully,
the fielders are throwing their gloves,
and the batters are jumping
higher and higher in this moment
for which they have come,
this forgetting so complete
they do not know why they are shouting.

[Click image to view]

Dear Don,

In my haste to take care of my
own business in my last letter, I
neglected to tell you how much
I – we all – enjoyed your book,
The Ox-Cart Man. I expect it
will be in our family for a long
time to come. I can easily see why
kids enjoy it, just as the kid
in me enjoyed the original poem.
Maybe it will even touch some
of them to like poetry!
Anyway, I’m glad I finally
got a chance to see it. It’s
a very nice little book.

Love,

Wes

[Click image to view]

Wes McNair
North Sutton
New Hampshire

Dear Wes,

A week from today I teach my first class. This Friday
I go to a department meeting. I know it is ridiculous, dis-
gusting, and revolting – but I practically feel sorry for
myself, and here I am teaching only one course in three years!
Do not tell anybody my disgusting secret.

I don’t know why this poem doesn’t work but you are
perfectly right to be worried about it. It does not work.
It makes me nervous all the way through, and not nervous in
a good way. It trembles on at the side of making fun of them,
and somehow or other that is too dreadful. Yet it is a wonderful
idea, and I would think that there is a wonderful poem here –
but not yet, and not in these words. I would put it deep in a
far drawer, “forget about it,” so far as you can, and discover
it by accident three years from now, sit down and write it out
perfectly. Well, that is what I would like to do, if I were
you. I would not struggle with it now. It is not a matter of
just changing a word here or there. It is something profounder
going on here.

I was delighted to see the poems in Poetry! They really
look good. And as I told Diane, old Nims puts them in a place
of honor. One is honored to be either first or last of the
group of poets there. This has been true forever and ever.
It means he thinks well of you. After we hear from the Atlantic,
unless the Atlantic buys everything we send them, we will go
back to see if we can sell some more to Nims. That’s a good
place to publish.

Best as ever,

Don

Will write on the new version
tomorrow.

[Click image to view]

Dear Don,

As always, you are right about my poem, and right
that it should be left for awhile. After my frenzied
correspondence about it, I sat down and read it, I mean
really read it, and I saw that I must try to reveal
more of the innocence of the “slow children,” so that the last
line suggests their ability to break free even of the
circumstances which led to their joy, into “pure joy.”

What made me nervous, too, was that the poem was
too close to making fun of the children. I went too
far, I think, towards trying to be “objective” in
my presentation of them, fearing that I might become
sentimental if I allowed myself too much sympathy.
It may well turn out that the hard part is done –
ie, I already have the situation I need for the poem,
some of its images and the kind of pacing I need.
The movement of the poem towards the “innerness” of
the slow children – that pacing – took a long time
to get, and I don’t expect that part to change much. Also,
I still like the way they transform the game and
its meaning.

But this is a hard thing to write about, especially
given the situation of the retarded on a baseball field.

2

If I can deal with such a risky situation, I
may have a better poem for it.

But I do go on. Thanks for writing about the
poem and for being your usual shrewd self.

Thanks too for repeating what you told Diane
about the “placement” of my poems in Poetry.
You make me feel good all over again. It would
be nice if Nims took other stuff.

Oh – and my lips are sealed about your secret.
My own secret is that I do not have to feel sorry
for myself this term. One good thing about being
there instead of here would be the chance to see
you to talk every now and then. But maybe
we can manage that here, with a get-together soon.

It’s better with bourbon, anyway.

I am going to try not to send you anything
for awhile now. I do have poems,
and many things underway, too – perhaps too
many. But I feel I should keep them in my own
head for awhile.

So – until then –

Love,

Wes

P.S. Did you see the poem “Venice” by James Wright
in the June Poetry? Wasn’t that fine?

[Click image to view]

Wes McNair
Box 43
North Sutton, NH 03260

Dear Wes,

Thanks for your letters. I’m really pleased that
you liked Ox Cart Man. I do not think of it as a poem, though
it is set in irregular lines… Just a way of phrase-grouping,
and slowing down… They wanted to call it a poem on the jacket,
but I wouldn’t let them. Actually, I imagine it is a good
selling point not to call it a poem! … though that was not
my reason.

I am thinking some more about the Slow Children –
though I know from your last letter that you have put it
aside anyway. You know, you are presuming to go inside
their minds, therefore not being “objective”… “Smiles at
nothing/ he can remember exactly.” “…the astonished…”
I wonder if it is possible – it will be a completely different
poem – to make it actually objective?

Probably it is best to hold poems back for a long time
before sending them to a friend. I think you do that
already. Jane and I have learned to do that even from each
other. More or less to keep something around, looking at it
daily for two months or so, before we will even show it to
each other. Because it has a way of changing on its own, before
anybody else’s words get into it.

It was really such a pleasure to see those good poems
in Poetry! … Oh, one more bit of sage, elderly, Polonius-like
advice. For a biographical note, I think it is wise not to
emphasize fellowships or academic appointments. I do not mean
that the note in Poetry is any serious gaffe or anything, honest
to goodness! But I think that in general, people just get mad
at you if they think you have had four thousand grants, which
would be my general impression if I just scanned your note
briefly, and they tend not to like poets who are Deans and
Vice-Presidents – which is what being director of the American
Studies Program sounds a little bit like. I think that the
most effective kind of biographical note is something that is
quite reticent, non-academic, and non-“successful.” “Wesley
McNair lives in New Hampshire where he raises goats with eyes
in the middle of their foreheads.”

I went to the faculty meeting on Friday, not the faculty
meeting – the English Department meeting. You will probably get
this on Wednesday, my first day of teaching. Pray for me. Pray
for my girls.

Yes, Jim Wright’s “Venice” is wonderful, and there are
many terrific things in this posthumous book of his.

Love to you all, as ever,

Don

[Click image to view]

Dear Don,

Your recent letter about submissions of my poems reminds me
that the cycle of submission starts in the fall – and that Joey
has only a few things of mine to send. Therefore, in spite
of my earlier thought about holding onto poems, I have decided
to send you the enclosed. If you think it is ready, please
give it to Joey. It is not a “biggie,” but it may be
worth something to him.

Incidentally, I just saw an ad for the Dorrance
publishing company. Is this a legitimate house, or
is it, as I suspect, a vanity press?

Found the “one question” you got from Cowley’s book
most instructive – and enjoyed the rest of your review
in the Times.

Love,

Wes

[Click image to view]

Dear Don,

I seem never to run out of
afterthoughts. This time, I only
want to change an article
(“the” to “a”) in poem 3
of “The People Upstairs.” Oh, well-
at least this will arrive with
the other stuff. The enclosed becomes
the final version of 3.

Wes

[Click image to view]

Dear Don,

Thanks for your letter, with its variety of responses to my
questions and comments.

Thanks, too, for your advice about bio notes. Actually, I was
surprised at what was written about me in Poetry. The write-up
was not derived from any statement I sent, but from a rather
extensive questionnaire which I filled out about jobs, publications,
grants and even “plans.”

The fact is, though, that I never even considered the dangers of
sounding “successful” when I filled out the form – nor did I
think much about sounding “academic.” You are right that I
should think about these things. What matters, anyway, is not
that stuff but the poems themselves; which is part of your
point.

Yes, “objectivity” is clearly beside the point in “The
Slow Children,” as your quotations make plain. You help
to clear my head for the later revision. No, I do not
hold onto poems when I first think they are finished,
which perhaps explains why I send you revisions after
I have sent you what seemed to be the final version. It
takes me so long to finish a poem, I guess, I am
overly anxious to have someone else read it, like it
and confirm that I really can go on to other work.
I will have to work on this impulse….

You have my prayers as you start at Colby – and
a question. Since (as I have been told) you are using
my office at Colby, maybe you would like me to clean
out my desk and cabinets? I had no idea you would
be there, though I probably could have figured it out.
Let me do this: I will clean out the desk and the
small cabinet to the right of the desk. Then you will
have room for whatever you may need to store. Is
that suitable? While you wait for whatever the prayers
may bring, I can at least deliver you from storage problems!
I will try to take care of this by the end of the
weekend.

Until then, may God be with you.

Love,

Wes

[Click image to view]

Wes McNair
Box 43
North Sutton, NH 03260

Dear Wes,

Joey thinks “The People Upstairs” is absolutely perfect,
and will be delighted to send it out, but I see a couple of
things I am not so sure of, so I persuaded him to let me
write you about the poem before he sends it out.

In the first one, I think that “drifting” is a classic
dead metaphor. I’m not crazy about “weightless” either, but
I really dislike “drifting,” which is a distinctly unanchored
unrowboat. I’m not so positive about “ ,” when you
come to that…

In the third part, it is “faint scream” that bothers me,
not the article. It is because screams have been faint since
the beginning of creation. I think everything else is just
fine here. I’m not absolutely positive about the end of the
second part, which is the difficult part. But there’s nothing
wrong with the diction! (I am just not positive that it is
all there or that it is said with as much clarity and force
as need be.) But I feel fairly sure about drifted and faint.

If you feel equally sure, in the other direction, I
will pass the word to Joey.

Love as ever,

Don

[Click image to view]

12 Sept. 1980

Dear Wes,

Do not touch your office. I have plenty of room
there. After all, I am teaching only one class, only
ten students so far – though I’m supposed to have
thirteen – and I’m only there a couple of hours a
week. I take the girls files home with me, because I
do my preparation at home… Therefore, I have plenty
of room, as it is, and don’t want you to disturb your-
self at all.

Sometimes when you fill out forms, you have to
suppress things! Not really I guess. You can’t help
what John Nims is going to do. Mostly, magazines ask
you to tell them what you want to be mentioned in the
bio-note. Love as ever,

Don

[Click image to view]

Dear Don,

While I am delighted that Joey finds “The People Upstairs”
“absolutely perfect” (his enthusiasm for my poetry is, after
all, one of the main things that keeps me going), I am also glad
to have your more reflective judgement [sic] of the poem.

I did worry about “faint scream” as a cliché, and I am
sure you are right that the phrase should be changed. I hope you
feel as I do that the new word of 3 is more resonant (in all
senses) than “faint”. I also hope you like the change in 1.
Please feel free to let me know if otherwise.

I have decided to go with the rest of it. “Weightless”
[Written in margin: It’s also the enjambment
which the word makes possible, in the preceding line that
I’d have trouble replacing -]
and “earshot” seem to me irreplaceable, and if 2 doesn’t say
enough, I can’t see how to fix it. At this point, it does feel
right to me. Or right enough that I am ready, with Valery, to
abandon it.

I always worry about these poems which depend so much on
the space around themselves to complete their utterance…That is,
I worry that the space does more for me than it might for the
reader. In this poem, visual space should become aural, and
both kinds of space should contribute to the “distance” between
upstairs and downstairs. I have tried for similar effects with
the page around the poem in “Memory of Kuhre” and “Elinore Quelch”,
and while I am reasonably sure the first of the two works, I
do not know about the Quelch poem. Nobody seems to like that one.

I hope you like this piece, in any event. If you do, please
give it to Joey.

One more thing: Would you please let me know which five
poems you think I should send to Houghton Mifflin? I should be
writing them soon.

Thanks!

Love,

Wes

[Click image to view]

Wes McNair
Box 43
North Sutton, NH 03260

Dear Wes,

Joey will be sending it out, and asked me to remind you
to put your name on the poems, upper righthand corner, or
a few spaces after the end of them – in typing, when you
type them up in the future.

I do think that “thin” is better than “faint,” though
also rather familiar, in the context.

I’m not sure which five poems! I do like a great great
many of them, and I like a great great many of them a great
great deal! Why don’t you see if you have a sense which five
are the most popular with most of the people whom you know…
which would be more reliable than just one person’s opinion.
I would surely include the Peaceable Kingdom, always, in
everything… The Poetry two are wonderful… And I think
that… well, don’t include Elinor, simply because too many
people do not seem to respond to it. (It spends its life
in the U.S. mails, still.)

As a matter of fact, I think you are quite consistent.
That is, I don’t think five stick out. I guess it would be
obvious that the adolescent dream poems would not be among
the five. Maybe I would take negative votes – your own,
based upon what you have heard from others – more seriously
even than the positive ones.

Best as ever,

Don

[Click image to view]

Dear Don,

Will you let me know sometime what you think
of the enclosed?

Thanks –

Love,
Wes

WAVING GOODBYE

Waving goodbye is the name
given to air
we shape with others,

husband and wife
gently touching
the distance

growing between them,
which is not air
exactly, not emptiness,

but what together
they are making, the almost
invisible thing

the father makes
with his son, stroking the air
as if it might break,

what all the sisters
and brothers, waving together,
letting go,

are bringing to life,
not emptiness, not the shape
of our sadness,

but rounder, and light
enough to lift up
as we turn,

rising above
the terminal, above
the heavy streets,

invisible
but for the loving
trace of hands.

[Click image to view]

Wes McNair
Box 43
N. Sutton, NH 03260

Dear Wes,

I don’t think I like it quite so much. Something willful
about it, I think, maybe in the abstraction. Yet I like the
middle of it a lot. I don’t really believe the metaphor of
“the name/ given to air/ we shape…” I like the father with
son, with sisters and brothers… the middle part there. Then
on the second page I don’t really follow it when it gets to be
“rounder…” Then I think that the ending is pretty and invisible,
with the metaphor of “trace.”

So I am fairly negative, I suppose – yet I should say:
without perfect confidence in my negativity, the way I usually
have!

Joey keeps busy, but editors are slow as molasses.

Love as ever,

Don