Wes McNair
Colby-Sawyer College
New London, N.H. 03257
Dear Wes,
I’m writing you back to the address on the stationery, because the
first part of it anyway is Colby-Sawyer business.
I’ll be delighted to read on April 11th. I think the 5th would have
been OK too, but if Carl prefers the 11th, let’s just make it the 11th.
Any and all class visitations will be just fine. also. [sic] Sometimes it seems
best to have class visitations after the lecture rather than before, so
that kids may have some questions to ask. I’d be happy to come up Tuesday
morning the 12th. (Tuesday afternoon I’ll be going up to Dartmouth to give
a lecture.) For that matter, I could come back on Wednesday if it were
better.
The pay is excellent. Thank you for all this.
Two weeks from now sounds fine for dinner. My daughter will be with
us until the morning of March 16th, so maybe it will be better to have it
a St.Patrick’s Day dinner or shortly thereafter – which would be actually
two weeks from when you wrote the letter, I guess. But you will telephone
anyway. [Handwritten in margin: Actually not the 17th/ 18? 19?]
I look forward to hearing about Marietta. I’m delighted that it
went extraordinarily well. Delighted; I’m not surprised! I’ve been reading
the manuscript over, by the way – the new or retyped manuscript which you
sent me. And there’s no question: things hold up. Have you heard anything
from New Rivers?
Jane is going through the struggle of finishing a manuscript right now,
to send out to people. Publishers, that is. Lots of revisions going on
all over this house.
Best as ever, and many thanks,
Don
A note from McNair about this letter:In the closing paragraph, the book manuscript Jane was assembling was From Room to Room, eventually published by Alice Janes Books. Don, in the meantime, was preparing the manuscript for Kicking the Leaves.
Am using this awful stationary
to tell you that (1) everything
at Marietta C. went extraordinarily
well (about which, more later) and that
(2) I have talked folks here into
a Donald Hall reading for either
April 5 or April 11 –
depending on your druthers.
Payment for the reading is
$800 – some class visitations –
two, perhaps- would be involved.
Can you let me know
if this last seems OK.
yrs,
Wes
P.S. – Our dinner for you &
Jane (& others) seems right
for two weeks from now. I’ll
give you a date soon – Hope
all is well with you both.
PPS – Just talked to Carl,
who says April 11 would be
the best date for the reading,
but suit yourself.
A note from McNair about this letter:The “Carl” of this letter is Carl Cochran, chair of the Colby-Sawyer College English department.
I’m over at Goddard in Vermont for a
few days. Good for Marietta, to have
the sense to follow my advice. It
will be good to see you when you get
back. Thanks for the mss. When
do you go there?
I’m so surprised and pleased at the same time,
I could spit! Right out of the blue, that call
from Stephen Bloom! I’m awfully grateful
you thought of me as a poet for Marietta
College. Can’t think how to tell you what that
means to me, except to say that I’m now
even higher than before ! Is there really a
world down there or did I only imagine it?
Thanks so very much.
Yrs,
Wes
Editorial note about this letter:The invitation from Marietta College was for a week-long NEA residency in late February.
Your decision sounds fine. We want
to see any- & everything new, when it’s
seeable, of course. And remember, you’re
going to send me (or bring me) another mss.
When you write again, could you let me
have your telephone number?
Many thanks for that letter. I’m delighted that you like the
poems. The minute I saw how good your poems were, I wanted you to like
my poems! I look forward to showing you more.
If you want to take a chance and wait to do a book-book, I will
only applaud your courage! That is, I know perfectly well – and you do
too – that a lot of bad books get published, and a number of good books
go unpublished, at least for quite a while – and that quality does not
guarantee acceptance, etc. But I am very very high on your poems, and
I could for instance recommend them very very highly to Harper & Row, and
that might help. I should say though that I have given “very very high
recommendation” to Harper & Row in the past, and I probably have, at
that level, I’m probably only batting about 400. Or less [handwritten].
I’m happy – we’re happy – if our admiration for your poems has
felt good to you. No, it doesn’t surprise me. I was hoping it would
help. It’s so rare that one can feel that way, that one can really look
a man in the eyes and express that kind of confidence – it’s a delight to
be able to do it.
Go ahead and be consumed with self-doubt. Some day you will hear
me express “confidence” in somebody you think is absolutely terrible. Or
whatever. That is, confidence is probably not even a useful quality among
poets! But it sure does feel good, when you feel it from time to time,
doesn’t it? Your letter has cheered me up about those poems. I was a
little bit down on some of them, for one reason or another – possibly sun
spots or the full moon!
We look forward to the revised copy of the manuscript, heaven knows.
Drop in when you’re over this way.
I have read the poems which I took with me after my last visit,
and I like them very much. Their language and form are so natural–
accessible and profound all at once. “Names of Horses”: the title
is wonderful, as is the subject of the poem. Its long, hymn-like
lines are most appealing, also its sad music. I especially like
the last line–knockout, the way those “names”work [sic]. “Kicking the
Leaves”: again that conversational speaker who is all the time
forming a poem. The gesture at the center of the poem is (becomes)
beautifully complex. The very best poems in the group are,
to my mind, “The Black Faced Sheep” (beautiful in its composition
alone) and “Flies”. But then, it’s an awfully strong group. Honestly,
these are some of the best poems I’ve read in a long time.
Jane, you mentioned that I should send along poems for Green House. I am sending two, neither of which should be used
until I receive word one way or the other from magazines to which
they’ve been sent. The “Rufus Porter” poem has been sent to San Hose
Studies, and the “Elinore Quelch” piece, which you may remember
from my book, has been sent to The American Poetry Review. I have
others, but they are either about to be published or unfinished.
No doubt at least one of the above mentioned will bounce. Please let
me know what you think of them (I enclose “E.Q.”, in the event you
need to review it); I’ll let you know as soon as I hear from
the mags above.
Don, you have me thinking about a “book-book”. Counting up
poems, I figure I have around 40 pages of text at this point,
and I feel that I might well have the thing written within the next
one or two years. It would be a book of reminiscences, like The Faces
of Americans, only more varied. My search through available stuff
has resulted in a find of four poems not included in The Faces.
You both may not realize that the confidence you expressed
in my poems last week saved my life. With scarcely anyone to talk to about
my writing, I had become consumed with self-doubt. Now, once again,
I believe….
Thanks so much for your kind words.
Yrs,
Wes
PS- My typist made a handful of typing errors
which changed certain poems in that book
for the worse– I will soon send you a revised copy
with the “Springfield Vt” poem currently in progress–
25 Dec 76
Thanks for the BAUHAN. Call to
check us out, but it ought to be ok
most any time, to come call, with
the illustrations. We’ll be glad
to see you again.
Sorry to have fouled up the spelling
of the Peterborough publisher. The name,
legibly this time (I hope) is
WILLIAM L. BAUHAN
I have just received the illustrations
done for The Faces of Americans in 1853
& would like very much to discuss them
with you. I’m not at all sure they’re
right. Will you be around during the holidays?
Wes
A note from McNair about this letter: The second paragraph refers to the chapbook manuscript I showed to Don and Jane with illustrations done by an artist friend (Don did not find them suitable in the end, and neither did I). I chose the painting on my card, “The Peaceable Kingdom,” because Don and Jane especially liked my poem “The Last Peaceable Kingdom” in the manuscript I left with Don. In fact, after Jane read the manuscript and discovered this poem had not yet been published, she chose it for her new poetry journal Green House, together with “Rufus Porter, Itinerant Muralist and Inventor, Undertakes a Commission in Bradford Center, N.H.”
How long can a ball-point pen last when one is on the
couch writing upside-down? Perhaps as long as this letter
does.
Have been in touch with Betsy Tunis (The baseball
researcher) & she says she will be ringing you soon. Be prepared.
Also, the publishing house in Peterboro is WILLIAM BAUGHAN.
They do art books (one on Barry Faulkner recently) &
[Written in margin: IN NOAH’S WAKE]
poetry books (cfs Allen Block). Stephen Greene, about which
we talked earlier, seems limited to recipe books &
unpredictable “specialties” —
Will stop before my pen does —
Yrs,
Wes
PS. Was that you I saw in The Blackwater Gazette?
My, what big eyes you have! Merry Christmas
to you both-
A note from McNair about this letter:Don had a baseball question for my friend, Betsy Tunis. He has also asked me to provide names of small New Hampshire publishers who might print a chapbook he had in mind.
