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Aliya Weiss

About Aliya Weiss

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

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Hall to McNair: November 7, 1980

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Hall-to-McNair-11-07-1980

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 7 November 1980

Wes McNair
Box 43
North Sutton, NH

Dear Wes,

Good news from John Nims. I think that his
point about “tampons” is well taken – for
accidental reasons, as he says. It is the kind
of thing where you might be able to restore the
word in a year or two, but I would think that
another word might be equally acceptable. What
do you think?

I am keeping “The Fat Enter Heaven” here,
but will return it with the (revised?) “Hair
on Television” when I write him again.

Actually, he has a couple of other newer
ones now, which the New Yorker has (mistakenly)
let go. He did not know he had a couple newer
poems, when he wrote this note. So we will
hope that he may have more than two, to print
together, next time you come out in Poetry!

Best as ever,

Don

 

Hall to McNair: October 31, 1980

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Hall-to-McNair-19-31-1980

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 October 31, 1980

Dear Mr. Amaryllis,

Thank you for letting us see Mr. McNair’s
poems.

I like, and would like to accept, two of
them (“Hair on Television,” “The Fat Enter Heaven”)
if Mr. McNair would change “tampons” to anything
else hawked on television.

My reason is that “tampons” right now has too
many painful associations with “toxic shock syndrome”
and suffering and death. It’s a gruesomely dissonant
not in this poem—though it might be fine elsewhere,
anywhere where gruesomeness was the intent.

I return the other poem just to save paperwork.
If Mr. McNair can rework his poem just a little, we
can accept both at once.

With all best wishes,

Sincerely,
John F. Nims

Read Hair on Television (published version)

Read The Fat Enter Heaven (published version)

Hall to McNair: October 30, 1980

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Hall-to-McNair-10-30-1980

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 30 October 1980

Wes McNair
Box 43
North Sutton, NH 03260

Dear Wes,

Many thanks for your letter, and I am
glad to hear what you say of “To a Waterfowl.”
It does have this social content… I have
always thought a little the less of it, because
its content was more outward than inward, and
so subject to performance… But really, it
is simply another idea of poetry – a more Horatian
idea.

I like the first version of the father/
brother poem. I guess I like it a little better
with the change of pronoun and fa for bro…
Just because it seems a little directer, more
into-the-eyes. But the poem was essentially
there the first time.

I have been going back to the new father
poem and returning “Forgive Me,” but I am not
sure. The guilt is real, but I am not sure
that the request for forgiveness is.

Best as ever,

Don

 

McNair to Hall: October 28, 1980

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McNair-to-Hall-10-28-1980

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 October 28, 1980
Dear Don,

Wanted you to know your reading of “To a
Waterfowl” last night brought out something I
in my stupidity hadn’t seen before. While the poet/speaker
mocks the affluent ones who “keep” him (the
wealthy businessmen, their wives and college-age
children), he also mocks himself, as a writer of
the poetry, which “shocks” the wives – the mad poet
of feeling, naked in his motel, watching King Kong
Sucks Mount Fugi.

It’s that ironic speaker – ironic accuser, I
should say – that gives the poem’s humor such
dimension, such seriousness, I now feel. I
had sensed the despair in the poem before,
but I never sensed all its sources so clearly.
In a short space, the piece says a lot about
the darker America – its wealth, classes, art
and artists.

By the way and for what it’s worth, I still
like the first version of the father (brother) poem.

It was good to see you, even if briefly.
I hope you made the kick-off!

Love,

Wes

Read To a Waterfowl (published version)

Hall to McNair: October 27, 1980

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Hall-to-McNair-10-27-1980

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 27 October 1980

Wesley McNair
Box 43
North Sutton, NH 03260

Dear Wes,

I will see you before I mail this – but I’ll be
damned if I’ll give up the opportunity for writing a
letter. I like your notepaper. How do you like mine?
Mine is courtesy of Peru, Indiana, where most of the worst
and most notorious letter writers of the United States
buy their stationary because it is so cheap. Marianne
Moore and I, Robert Creely and I all share the same
stationary.

Please realize that the main problem is that jobs
are terribly difficult. That is, probably two thousand
people apply for each job listed, and of those two thousand
one thousand have a Ph.D. already, and another seven hundred
almost have it. And for a job in creative writing, if only
and probably most of them can claim a “book” or two… Because
hiring is done on the basis of statistics rather than value,
they are most likely to get the job than you are – at this
moment. Once you have a book things will get easier. There
will still be hundreds and hundreds of and hundreds of people,
terrible poets with terrible books, who will statistically
equal you! It is all so ridiculous!

I fear for Colby-Sawyer also. And I admire the place,
and think there are a lot of good teachers there, certainly
many very hardworking ones, and it is a good place for those
one out of four girls who will manage to mature in the head,
to get alive, while they are there. I fear for it. Muller
seems to be a clever man, and maybe he can work miracles. But
it is scary. I feel really frightened for the good people
teaching there – which obviously includes you! Jack Jensen
my minister and dear friend… so many others. Maybe Carl
is the lucky one, retiring at this time.

The payscale also I realize. though the other thing is
more serious. But of course if you were paid twenty-five per
cent more in Tempe, you would probably have less money in
Tempe than you have in North Sutton!

Therefore if I were you and I were offered a decent
job elsewhere I would probably go also! I think you will
not be offered a good job elsewhere right now – which is not
to say that you should not try. I believe that you should try.
I believe however that the chances are against you, and that
therefore you can take your sabbatical!

A note from McNair about this letter: The “Muller” referred to here is Nick Muller, then the president of Colby-Sawyer College. Though the College had fallen on hard times in this period of its history, it eventually bounced back and is now thriving.

McNair to Hall: October 22, 1980

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McNair-to-Hall-10-22-1980

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 October 22, 1980
Dear Don,

How do you like my new note paper? I’m not sure
I do, but Diane bought it for me, and here, we waste
nothing!

You were good to take the time to warn me about the
Teaching of Creative Writing in America. I am so often
idealistic about the teaching of anything. Though I
should certainly know better by now, I still imagine the
perfect class, the perfect approach, the perfect colleagues.
I fear my mind is clouded (so to speak) with such thoughts
as I dream of a job as an instructor of writing.

You may be right in questioning my move from
Colby-Sawyer. Here, in any event, is my case against
Colby: Enrollment there is declining. In the past year,
the decline has been quite serious. Though I have
tenure, I am not certain whether the College itself
does. I do not relish the fight which may be
coming for the dry end of the deck dock. And I worry
that if I don’t try to move now, before I am 40,
I may face an even tougher time later, with
employers who are looking for a prettier, and younger
face.

Of course, those “sub-literate” girls do get me
down occasionally – as do some of the less visionary
faculty members I have to deal with in the maintenance

2/

and development of the American Studies program.
And I am not at all happy with the pay scale at
the College, which is not likely to improve any time soon.

[Written in margin: But this seems ungrateful as I reread
and I should add that I have made a few good friends at CSC, have
had some very good students, and have often been treated generously by the institution —]

Yet I am torn. I have a sabbatical coming up
next year. If I were to leave this year, I would
miss that – and more time off for writing. (However,
staying for the sabbatical would mean staying for one
year beyond the sabbatical year…two years in all.)
Also, I would miss northern New England in the (likely)
event I had to leave the area. Needless to say, I
would also miss the proximity to you at Eagle Pond Farm.

Since receiving your letter, I have decided to try for
jobs combining literature and writing, and emphasizing
the former. My credentials are better for that sort
of position anyway, and I certainly would not want
to end up in the lizard-infested swamp you describe.
Besides, I would miss teaching literature. I am glad
for your guidance there.

It could always happen that after all my efforts,
I wouldn’t land a job. That would settle the whole
thing for me – I would stay two more years, period.
Anyway, I will keep you posted, and should this letter
occasion new thoughts on the matter, I’d be happy to
hear what they are.

I was happy to learn of the reading you and
Jane will give at Carl’s next Monday. Of course
I will be there. It will be good to hear Jane read

3/

(I’ve never heard her before) and to hear some of her
new work. And I look forward to hearing again
some of the wonderful poems of Kicking the leaves.
Do you take requests? Would you consider reading
“Flies,” one of my favorites, which I’ve never
heard you read? I would also love to hear an
earlier, shorter poem – one whose title I never can
recall – about the public urinals. That poem, too,
is a particular favorite.

But these may not fit your format for the evening,
and I will be most grateful to hear whatever you
may decide to read. (Believe it or not, I can still
hear whole passages of poems you read during that
wonderful evening at Colby three years ago!) I
shall be sorry to miss the trumpeting, bowing
and flugling you do to “tune up” before the
reading. I can picture the chipmunks and other
poor dumb animals fleeing deep into the woods
as you prepare yourself on the way over!

Anyway, Diane and I are glad to be beginning
next in this week in this most positive way. We will
see you Monday!

Love,

Wes

P.S. Wanted to tell you that I will not be sending the
revision of the “fat” poem I just completed or
anything else I have worked on – for a long time.
This time I mean it. You are right that
finished poems should be kept for awhile.
Certainly all poems should be given time. And
when one is writing during a grant or sabbatical
period, there is a tendency to want to
finish everything and count it all up. I have found
that a destructive inclination, and I am trying
mightily to resist it – to let poems develop in their
own time, whether it happens to fall within the
grant period or not. Whenever you may get poems,
though, rest assured I am working, working.

P.P.S. I was delighted with your prediction about Davison.
Whether it proves out or not, I am glad for the
Faith it shows you and Joey have in my poems.

A note from McNair about this letter: The reading I refer to was given for guests at the home of the English department chair at Colby-Sawyer College, Carl Cochran. My teasing about Don’s “flugling,” etc. plays off his own comic description of preparations for his reading three years before….. The “fat” poem mentioned in the postscript is “The Fat People of the Old Days,” discussed with Don in Section III of our correspondence and still underway.

Read Flies (published version)

Read The Repeated Shapes (published version)

Hall to McNair: October 17, 1980

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Hall-to-McNair-10-17-1980

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 17 October 1980

Wesley McNair
Box 43
North Sutton, NH 03260

Dear Wes,

Good to hear from you. I fully understand your wish
to leave Colby-Sawyer. I think you may have picked a very
difficult time to move. Do not burn any bridges! …I do
not mean that you should not be looking, and my recommendation
will go out today.

Still, I have a number of observations. I suspect that
most other places would be no more stimulating then Colby-Sawyer.
Colby-Sawyer has a pleasing sort of faculty. You would have
better students at many other places – but of course you would
virtually never, in twenty years of teaching, have what we
might reasonably call a “good poet.” And you would surround
yourself with a whole lot of bogus professionalism, the wretched
hustlers of the academy – who prevail at Dartmouth, Michigan,
Arizona State, etc.… But not nearly so much at Colby-Sawyer.

Second, it is well known that it is virtually impossible
to get a job in writing right now, unless you have three or
four books, and preferably a Pulitzer Prize. I am almost
serious. Everybody looking for work now has an M.F.A. I
don’t think you need an M.F.A.! I don’t think an M.F.A. means
anything. But probably it means something to Deans.

And then, because there are so many small presses and
small publishers, lots of people apply for jobs saying that
they have published nine books, seven, thirteen… And in a
sense they have.

There are also good people, with books, with M.F.A.’s,
looking for work. It is really a terrible time. It is also
a terrible time in mathematics, physics, etc. But creative
writing is one of the worst areas right now, because of the
frantic overproduction of M.F.A.’s in the last fifteen years.

Third, or fourth or whatever it is…do try, if you are
looking for a new job, to get something that includes the
teaching of literature. The swamp of the creative writing
industry, in this country, consists mainly of illiterate
lizards who cannot teach literature at all because they
haven’t read anything. To be isolated with them in a “creative
writing department” is a fate worse than teaching in a room full
of sub-literate young ladies, which is what you are used to.

2/

[X] I was at Arizona State last autumn and I think it is
in the swamp all right. Still, anything might be welcome
relief, and a good change, so I would not try to argue with
you about taking the job if you’ve got it. But I suspect
that there will be two or three hundred applications for it,
and that most of them will list books, and that some of them
will really have published two, three, or four books.

I am being discouraging! I don’t want you to expect
too much… But I am not trying to get you not to try –
much as I would prefer it if you stayed in North Sutton!

That is nice news about the Magazine Verse book. Jane
had a letter from them too. In the letter to her, the man
offered no money at all. Did he offer any to you? She is
going to ask him for some. And then if he won’t give her
any, she will probably let him have it for free.

I have learned to ask: does the ink-manufacturer donate
the ink? Does the paper-manufacturer donate the paper? Is
there absolutely no sum whatsoever to the secretaries typing
these letters? To the editor himself?

There will be more poems in more places before very
long, I do believe. Peter Davison wrote a very sweet letter
of rejection – and I would predict that he would take something
within a year. I don’t suppose I should make such predictions!
But I wouldn’t be surprised…

Oh my goodness, the foliage is fantastic.

Love as ever,

Don

Editorial note about this letter: Included with this letter is Hall’s letter of recommendation for McNair’s job search, accompanied by other letters written by professors from Bread Loaf, and from Dartmouth College, where McNair took courses in American literature, history and art during 1971-72, sponsored by a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

See the letter of recommendation Hall wrote for McNair here.

McNair to Hall: October 11, 1980

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McNair-to-Hall-10-11-1980

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 October 11, 1980

Dear Don,

Well, I was hoping the poem was better than you appear to think.
I will just have to wait for awhile and then look at it again to see
what can be done. Thank you for your thoughts, as always.

I write to ask for still another favor. Would you be willing
to send a recommendation for me to the placement office of Associated
Writing Programs?

The reason I need the recommendation is that I want to leave
Colby-Sawyer. I need a place that is more stimulating, and which
takes up less of my writing time. I have been hoping to leave for some
years, actually, but it has taken me a long time, as you know, to get
degrees and publications in order. For an extra advantage in job-hunting
it would be nice, of course, to have the book placed. But who knows?
Maybe the book will be published soon enough to give my applications
a push. In the meantime, I will just have to hope that my publications,
grants and recommendations will serve well enough.

I would not be asking for the recommendation at all if I were
planning to apply for a position in American studies. As it happens,
I have a fairly complete dossier (at Middlebury) in those areas. But
I’ve decided to apply for jobs in creative writing (an area in which
I’ve done some teaching in the past), or in a combination of creative
writing and literature. That is, I plan finally to adjust my teaching
assignment to my real self, kept secret for so long! And for that I need
a different sort of statement.

I do know how painful recommendation-writing can be. If it is too
painful at the moment—because you are busy with poems, textbook
revisions, or freshman themes—please feel free to wait. The AWP dossier
will have at least two other recommendations in it by the end of next
week. Yours can come along later if you wish.

The jobs I’m interested in right now, by the way, come from the
most recent AWP job notice. One is at Arizona State; the other, at
Loyola University of Chicago. As I say, I am a little nervous about
not having placed my book before applying to these places, or to any others.
Under the circumstances, a comment from you about the manuscript I now
have probably wouldn’t hurt, if you wouldn’t mind furnishing one.

Incidentally, I did get a bit of good news the other day. Alan
Pater, editor of the Anthology of Magazine Verse & Yearbook of Am. Poetry,

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wrote to ask me for permission to reprint “The Bald Spot” in the 1981
volume of his anthology, going shortly to press. All hail to Joey
for placing the poem in Poetry in the first place!

Thanks again for your comments on my poem. I hope you are enjoying
the foliage around Eagle Pond Farm.

Love,

Wes

P.S.—I enclose an addressed, stamped envelope for your convenience.

Editorial note about this letter: The poem referred to in the first paragraph is “Waving Goodbye,” which Hall assesses in his final letter of Section III.

Read Waving Goodbye (published version)

See also a selection of McNair’s manuscript notes and drafts for “Waving Goodbye.”

Hall to McNair: October 6, 1980

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Hall-to-McNair-10-6-1980

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 6 October 1980

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

A note from McNair about this letter: I quickly abandoned “Waving Goodbye,” the poem in question here, but it returned many years later, less abstract in its conception, fastened down by human experience. The final version of “Waving Goodbye, published in my 1998 collection Talking in the Dark, appears below. Sometimes the creative cycle a poem requires is long, and “Waving Goodbye” took nearly as long as “The Retarded Children Play Baseball” to think through. So this section of letters ends with a kind of promise to my future development as a poet.

Read Waving Goodbye (published version)

See also a selection of McNair’s manuscript notes and drafts for “Waving Goodbye.”

McNair to Hall: September 28, 1980

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mcnair-to-hall-09-28-1980

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 September 28, 1980

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.

 

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