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Aliya Weiss

About Aliya Weiss

http://www.colby.edu/directory_cs/acweiss/

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McNair to Hall: January 24, 1981 (misdated January 24, 1980)

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McNair-to-Hall-01-24-1980

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 January 24, 1980 [misdated, should be 1981]
Dear Don,

Thanks very much for your letter from The Atlantic and the
check. I thought Davison had taken “Old Trees” instead of “Trees
That Pass Us,” and so I am twice surprised. Anyway, it is
awfully good to be appearing in that magazine.
Also, thanks for your words about my “bad patch,” I’d
hope to be reborn soon, as the lack of sleep alone is killing me.
I am very sorry to learn of your own current bad patch.
Lest whatever “guilt” you may refer to makes you feel like a
bad man, please remember that you have saved my life
as a poet, and continue too do so. Whoever may be taking notes
on us both has a whole page about that.

I am in the process of rewriting “A Dream of Herman,”
and I have the thing done except for the last line. The problem
is, I still like the line, I knew it was perfect iambic
pentameter when I wrote it, and I liked the way the poem
found its way to the line, resolving itself in content and form.
I feel that way now. I sense you do not like the perfection
of the line, meter, especially given the lack of meter in the
rest of the poem (except for the movement toward iambic
in the next-to-last line). What really worries me is that you
seem so sure of your position in this, since that usually
means I am dead wrong. Yes, I say, I like the
line and am therefore unable to find a suitable alternative
for it. I even like “lovely,” because for me the reference to
“trees” gives the word a definition it wouldn’t ordinarily have/
takes away the vagueness you have mentioned.

I may very well be unable to see the poem clearly because
of my closeness to the material. I do know the tendency toward
sentimentality one has with this stuff. Perhaps that is what you
hear coming through in that last, perfect line. (Maybe you
hear sentimentality in other pieces?) I thought I was
saved from sentimentality of the closeness of the ride to a
hearse ride, and by certain lines which conjure up Herman,
and half suggest, at the same time, that he isn’t there (“as if
just back” “breathing the scale,” etc.)

Please tell me more if you can, about the last line!
I need to see it better. The shortest note will do…
Would it be any help to get rid of the first “as”?

Thanks to you and Joseph again for The Atlantic
publication!

Love,

Wes

P.S. Manuscript is now out to other places—U.
Alabama and the National Poetry Contest. Next month
is just Yale and Princeton Pittsburg—again! Will soon be
sending ten (published) poems to the Discovery/Nation
contest.

McNair to Hall: January 17, 1981

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McNair-to-Hall-01-17-1981

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 January 17, 1981

Dear Don,

I do hope your “big son” is at least relating ok –
taking nourishment, and even drinking an occasional
beer, as I think I recollect he enjoys doing. At least
what happened can be mended – no doubt the mending
goes on right now, and that is good. My thoughts
are with you during this unpleasantness.

Thank you for sending the notes from Poetry. I
am awfully pleased to know the poems will appear there.
The lift this gives me is especially important at
this time, since, to tell the truth, I happen to be
going through a very down period. In the past
few weeks, I have found myself crying a lot,
immersed in regrets of various kinds, painfully
aware of the cost of running too hard in
my life. I am told “This Thing” happens to
others. Did “it” happen to you at roughly my
age? I have been, I think, fighting it off
for a couple of years, at least. But the thing
is here now, full force. I guess I am relieved

2/

in a way to have lost control, to have found this new
contact with my emotions; yet how much everything
hurts! And how irrelevant the “main memories”
of my life feel!

You can see, then, why I have not written to you
for a while. I believe I am ready to do better
with that now. But I did want you to know why
this lapse!

Even writing is hard to do – that is, poetry writing –
especially when I am in the process of discovering
how much about my “inner life” my poems contain,
even when they are about subjects quite removed
from personal experience. Of course, I always knew
all my poems were autobiographical, as everyone’s
are. It’s just that I never knew how much
autobiography was there!

Anyway, I do send a poem along – a new
version of a piece you saw earlier. I hope
to be sending other stuff, too, in the not-too-distant
future.

In the meantime, best to you, your son, and
your wife – and thank you again for all your notes.

Love,

Wes

Editorial note about this letter: The poem that McNair mentions at the end of this letter is “A Dream of Herman” (see December 9, 1980) for which he changed the word “riffled” to “scribbled,” responding to Don’s earlier critique, though he has not yet dealt with Don’s rejection of the “perfect iambic pentameter” in the poem’s last line.

 

 

Hall to McNair: January 13, 1981

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Hall-to-McNair-01-13-1981

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 January 13, 1981

Joseph Amaryllis, Amaryllis Inc.
P.O. Box 71
Potter Place N.H. 03265

For your contribution to The Atlantic Monthly
entitled “Trees That Pass Us In Our Cars”
we enclose a check for $36.00
[Written below: -3.60 = $31.40]
in payment of all rights.

Since the ATLANTIC is interested in first American
and Canadian magazine rights only, we shall be happy, on receipt
of your request, to assign the copyright therein to you, at any
time after the publication date, reserving to ourselves the right to
vend copies of your contribution during the term of the copyright
as a component part of the edition of The Atlantic Monthly in
which it is originally published and for which copyright will be
claimed.

We are advised that this formal procedure is necessary
to protect your rights, as well as ours, under the very complicated
conditions surrounding the copyright laws.

Very truly yours,

THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY

Hall to McNair: January 5, 1981

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Hall-to-McNair-01-05-1981

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 5 January 1981

Wes McNair
North Sutton, NH 03260

Dear Wes,

Thanks for the card. Here is the latest
acceptance slip, just arrived although dated
15 December.

My big son cracked up the car on December
28th and has been in New London Hospital ever
since. He will be home here with us by the
time you get this letter probably. He will be
all right, but he has back injuries, and has to
lie flat on his back for a number of weeks.

Best,

Don

McNair to Hall: January 1, 1981

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McNair-to-Hall-01-01-1981

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 Jan 1, 1980 [1981]
Dear Don,

I haven’t written recently
because I have been on a trip
to see my brother in Wisconsin –
and I have been swallowed up by
holiday activities, which have included
an extended visit from my mother –
in law, bereft this season.
But I have been glad to get
your notes, one about my recent
poem (which I shall have to revise)
and the other about my sabbatical –
and I have appreciated your thoughts about both
things! Please let me know when you hear from
Nims! More poems later!  Love, Wes

Hall to McNair: December 15, 1980

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Hall-to-McNair-12-15-1980

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 15 December 1980

Notice of Acceptance

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

HAIR ON TELEVISION
THE FAT ENTER HEAVEN

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

Editorial note about this letter: This is John Nims’s formal acceptance of the two poems he was holding in anticipation of a change to “Hair on Television.”

Hall to McNair: December 9, 1980

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Hall-to-McNair-12-09-1980

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 9 Dec. 1980

Dear Wes,

That ought to be a very good poem… “Riffled”
is a cliche, false-color. The last line sounds too
much like a last line! It might end better simply
without it. It is absolutely perfect iambic pen-
tameter, which is one reason why it sounds like
a last line. And “lovely” seems just vaguely honorific
to me… What kind of song is a “lovely song”?
I think I like the floating trees. I wish it were
not iambic at all.

Don

Editorial note about this letter:  The poem Don is discussing in this letter is the elegy, “A Dream of Herman.” In it, McNair pays tribute to his father-in-law, Herman Reed, a band leader, whose life seemed to him “unsung” in his letter of November 24, 1980. Here is the draft Hall responded to on December 9.

A Dream of Herman

I was driving the old Dodge wagon
again, with Coke cans rolling
to the front at stop signs,
and you rubbing the dash
every so often to thank the car
for not needing the spare tire
we hadn’t fixed. We were on a trip
that felt like going to your father’s camp, only
we never got there and didn’t care.
It was a beautiful day, just enough wind
coming into the back to make the kids
squint with pure pleasure
as it riffled their hair, and your mother
patted them, saying what a nice ride it was
in the odd, small voice
she used only for your father.
It was then in the rearview mirror I saw him,
wearing the brown cardigan he always wore
and putting on the shining bell
of his saxophone as if just back
from an intermission. You were smiling,
and suddenly I saw the reason
we were traveling together
and did not want to stop
was Herman, who just sat there
in the cargo space, breathing the scale
until the whole family sat back
in their seats, and then he lifted his sax
and opened one more song
as wide and lovely as the floating trees.

 

Hall to McNair: December 8, 1980

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Hall-to-McNair-12-08-1980

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8 Dec. 1980

Dear Wes,

Wonderful about the sabbatical. Colby-Sawyer
has made up for its (one person’s) insensitivity
in connection with the current grant.

Having fifteen months off in a row will ruin
you forever!

That is where I learned my taste for such liv-
ing as I do now, taking a year off here and there.
Well, may you join me in – as people sometimes
suggest – “retirement.” Of course I work a hundred
hours a week, in my retirement. It is the only way
to go however! Love as ever,

Don

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