Letters Between Poets
McNair to Hall, October 21, 1984
A note from McNair about this letter: David Cote is the president of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire, who turned to me at the banquet without any forewarning and asked me to make a speech on Don’s behalf.
McNair to Hall, October 12, 1984
Hall to McNair, October 5, 1984
McNair to Hall, September 29, 1984
A note from McNair about this letter: The testimonial banquet is a celebration of Don as New Hampshire’s new poet laureate. Having met Richard Eberhart, the former poet laureate, at Dartmouth, I offered him a ride to the event…. In 1985, some months after my conversation in these excerpted letters, I returned to “Perley Hunt Walking,” retitling it, and writing it out as it needed to be, keeping Don’s earlier comments in mind.
Read Hunt Walking (published version)
Hall to McNair, September 27, 1984
McNair to Hall, September 24, 1984
Editorial note about this letter: Here is the revision of “Perley Hunt Walking” McNair enclosed:
PERLEY HUNT WALKING
Perley Hunt is off balance. Each day the part of him
that is no longer afraid to fall and the part of him that
is argue all the way to the mail. People who come out
of the post office see him walking, by almost falling
down on one side and on the other, holding aloft the
bony wing of his cane, and in this moment not one
thinks of his bad luck, or of the lucky life he might
have had. None thinks of any life beyond these hands
slowly passing the cane back and forth, this miracle
of walking on the undulant earth.
Hall to McNair, September 20, 1984
McNair to Hall, September 16, 1984
McNair to Hall, August 30, 1984