McNair to Hall: May 13, 1984 [misdated 1983]
Read The Day I Was Older (published version)
A note from McNair about this letter: Howard is Howard Moss, poetry editor at The New Yorker.
A note from McNair about this letter: Here begins my questioning of the single comma Don proposes for “The Shooting.” I ponder that comma off and on with him until my letter of May 6, when I at last see the logic of the change–also changing, in the end, the line break of the poem’s third to last line. To read the May 6 letter and the poem’s published version, click here.
A note from McNair about this letter: Don means to say in his first paragraph that when Pralle of the Poetry Society requested a resume from him, he wrote to say he’d send one in a week, though his thoughtfulness in doing so was lost on them. Now the ceremony for a new poet laureate would have to be postponed. Complicating Don’s appointment as poet laureate was Richard Eberhart’s fear that Don would charge New Hampshire audiences too much money for his readings…. “Old Peter” in the next-to-last paragraph is Peter Davison of The Atlantic.
Read The Baseball Players (published version)
Read Remembering Aprons (published version)
Read The Faith Healer (published version)
Read The Portuguese Dictionary (published version)
A note from McNair about this letter: Pralle is the head of the New Hampshire Poetry society, also in charge of finding a state poet laureate to replace Richard Eberhart, now at the end of his term. Pralle left a message with Diane to return his call, and when I did, he asked for a “precis”–meaning resume–wondering why Don had waited this long to send one.
[Click image to view] |
March 3, 1984
Dear Don, It’s great to see some of your new poems, about which I I think there are two poems in “The Day I was Older” (love “Six Naps in One Day” is a good sequence all the way 2/ provide a transition of sorts from earlier poems, but does not seem And I like “New Animals”–the way “waking one morning” I do not like “Acorns” so much. I think that’s because I I don’t think “The Granite State” is ready yet, either. 3/ fully becoming poetry. I can try to write more about this if I save “Another Elegy”, the most interesting poem, til last. These are the passages I mean: part 2, the part about And the poem is in all awfully good, intricate in its 4/ in parentheses, questioning your own motives, wondering about Then I think there are certain passages that might But it’s a wonderful project–and wonderfully “ambitious.” As you’ve perhaps noticed, the NHTimes article has 5/ something in the first place, rather than writing to Begiebing Anyhow, aside from the absense [sic] of Jane, I find In spite of all, I was pleased. Please tell me what Love, Wes |
Read the article in the New Hampshire Times: “Wesley McNair: Poet.”
Read The Day I Was Older (published version)
Read Six Naps in One Day (published version)
Read New Animals (published version)
Read Acorns (published version)