Section IV

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Dear Don,

Rising early in the morning seems to be the only
way of writing this letter to you–a letter I have
been “about to write” for a very long time. So I’ve
risen early, after staying up until nearly two
this morning covering a couch.

I do not recall if I told you that Diane and
I decided to have some renovations done on the
house during this summer. In fact, we made the
contract with our builders shortly before her accident.
Have you ever gone through a period of renovation?
I never guessed how time-consuming this thing
would be. It has of course gone on at the very
time Diane has been recuperating–terrible timing,
but the builders couldn’t work us into their schedule
later on, and we had to get certain things such as
roofing and re-clapboarding done before winter.
Also, we needed to have our porch repaired–
the boards were in woeful shape. We combined
that exterior work with renovation of the kitchen
and bathroom, and with other projects such as
recovering the couch. The builders have only just
left, so that the “other projects” can begin. Thus,

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our summer, which began with getting Diane back on
her feet and dealing with the builders, now concludes
with finishing touches on the renovation. I am bound
and determined to get all that stuff done before my
sabbatical officially begins so I can (finally)
settle down to long days of writing. At this point,
I am deeply frustrated, dying to get going on
poems!!

I am, however, also pleased with Diane’s recovery.
She threw away her crutches some weeks ago and
is now up and around with only occasional, and
minor relapses. Her physical therapist thinks her
recuperation is near-miraculous, and so do I.
A week ago, we learned that she has been granted
worker’s compensation. More good news!

I have managed to revise my book manuscript.
So I am totally free for new work, come two
weeks from now. I have decided to call it
The Faces of Americans in 1853. I have also
removed “The Poetic License” from the “Faces”
section of the book, so that the affirmative

[Written in left margin at last line, above:
Forgot to mention
I’ve also removed
the “dirty” poems
and “Beggars.”
Perhaps they are
poems for a
different book – ]

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connection with Rufus Porter (central figure in
the as-of-now last two poems in the section)
leads without irony to the last section and its
reconciliation with self and place. I have
retitled two of the sections (the last, for instance,
is called “Where I Live”), and I’ve added three
new poems, all of which you’ve seen.

This week, I begin to retype the book, so
you can see it sometime next week. I am
quite happy with the new form. It makes a lot
more sense, I think, as a “journey.” I hope you
like it, and I hope to God I can finally get
rid of it. I must move on from the book and
its needs to new work, new concerns!

I hope your own writing is going well. Two days
ago, I was visited by a friend who brought back
my copy of Kicking the Leaves, and I reread it.

It really is a wonderful book, far better than
any reviews have said, even though the reviews
were generally positive. The elegiac feeling is
so strong in it, and so elegantly expressed!
“Names of Horses,” “Flies,” “Black Faced Sheep,”

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poem after poem hits me over the head. Also, I returned
to the concluding pages of String Too Short To Be Saved,
this time noticing a description of the present which
reminds me of a poem you sent me in manuscript
called “The Intersection.” (The description I mean
is in the Epilogue, “Being Here.”) I have not yet
looked up the poem, but I would guess the description
will help me with it. Anyway, I like the (new) part
of the book very much–almost took it as an
epigraph for my book, but it wasn’t quite the right
thing.

Got the two copies of The Atlantic a few days ago,
and I was most thrilled. I do thank you and
Joey again for making that happen.

Please pass on regards to Jane. I hope she
has got beyond the Great Sorrow of awhile
back.

And I send this to Danbury, assuming
that by now you are back there. Best to you,
Jane, Wesley Wells, the animals and all
at Eagle Pond Farm and environs!

And Love,

Wes

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Dear Don,

Enclosed, the money due you for
the Poetry publication.

Thanks to you and Joey.

Hope you and Jane are doing OK.

Love,

Wes

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Dear Don,

Thanks–belated thanks–for your very encouraging
letter about my book.

I have not written because fate has filled my life
once again with activities which prevent regular
correspondence. I am holding down the house while
Diane prepares to go under the knife one more time
at Mary Hitchcock. Now, she has a ruptured disc.
It looks as if she will be more-or-less OK
after the operation and the ensuing period of recuperation,
but the recuperation will take 3-4 months, and
much of that time, she will be flat on her back.
She probably won’t be finished with this thing until
October.

Diane tells me that fate has also played a trick
on Jane. After the experience with my father-in-law
last fall, I can imagine how troublesome this period
is for her. Please wish her well for me.

I will try to keep you posted on Diane’s condition
after this new surgery. In the meantime, thanks
for your patience with such a rotten correspondent.
I think of you both often, however it may appear!

Love,

Wes

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Dear Don,

Not a new poem–just the old one
with the revisions I mentioned typed in.

If I am lucky, this is ready
to become one of the next batch.

Am working on many other things,
but progress is, as usual, slow. I
should have a reasonable group of
things by October, though.

When is the Ploughshares coming out?

I await that and the probable return
of my manuscript from Pittsburgh…

Something to look forward to, and something to dread.

Best in your work.

Love,

Wes

When Paul Flew Away

It was the same as always,
Paul opening the big, black lung
of it with that worried look
while the cats watched
from under the stove,
but when he closed
his eyes and began to sink
down between the straps
of his bib-overalls,
it was like he died. Except
the accordion was still breathing
a waltz between his hands,
except he called back
to us every so often
from wherever he was, shit.
Which meant everything
he had ever known
in his life up to that
moment, but this song.
Not some sock-drawer
music of getting a tune out
and then rummaging
for the chord to match,
but together, exactly like
he was breathing the thing
himself. No stomping
either, just Paul twisting
like he was after some deep
itch, only right then
he was starting to lift
out of his chair. Slowly
at first, like flypaper
in a small breeze, then
the whole enormous weight
of him hanging over the sink. God,
he was happy, and I
and the kids was laughing
and happy, when all
at once it come to me,
this is it. Paul is leaving
the old Barcolounger
stuck in second
position, and the tv on top
of the tv that don’t
work, and all my hand-paintings
of strawberries as if he had never
said this would be Strawberry Farm.
Hey! I said to him out in the yard
because he was already going
right over the roof
of the goat-shed, pumping
that song. What about you
and me? And Paul
just got farther and smaller
until he looked like a kid
opening paper dolls over
and over, or like
he was clapping slowly
at himself, and then
like he was opening up the wings
of some wild, black bird
he had made friends with
just before he disappeared
into the sky above the clouds
over all of Wisconsin.

-Wesley McNair

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Dear Don,

Finally, I manage to write!

I thought time would be easier to find after my course at NHC
concluded at the end of April, but then Diane went into the
hospital for a hernia operation. Now, she is at home, recuperating,
and I am trying to keep the house in order. I write this just
after getting the kids on the bus, and just before starting housework.
Soon, I will be taking this to the mail and going to the college to
pick up final exams. So you see, time isn’t easier to find.

Fortunately, Diane’s recuperation is going well. Yesterday,
she was able to do some work in her studio, and she is able
to spend more time on her feet every day. She hopes to be
well enough by June to go to Haystack–a ceramics
school in Maine, whose month-long session I paid for
with NHC money…the only good thing which came out
of that experience. Obviously, she will be staying away from
the liquor store for several days.

The news on my book is all bad. I will soon be one of
the most famous also-rans in American publishing. I was
a finalist in this year’s Walt Whitman contest, and I was
a finalist in the Princeton poetry series. AWP just wrote to
say my book received “serious consideration” (the note was
attached to their copy of my manuscript). The book is now
at Pittsburgh and Alabama. You will remember that
it got to the final reading in Pitt last year and the

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year before. I doubt the pattern will be broken this year–unless,
perhaps, the manuscript doesn’t quite make it that far.

I’m trying to decide whether I should change the format
of the book. Perhaps the title The Faces of Americans in 1853
and a new arrangement of the poems would make the thing
more “marketable.” What do you think? Unhappy as I
am about seeing the book through another cycle of readings
next year, I fear I will soon be facing that prospect,
and I have the feeling a new approach is needed.

As I’ve implied, the Colby-Sawyer term is almost
over now. I will be able to write soon, and I am looking
forward to that mightily. A month ago, I wouldn’t have
been able to say that. I was still going through my
“bad patch,” which turned out to be far more extensive
than I thought it might be. The nutso activity
of the semester was finally a good thing for me
since it keeps me away from my inner world, which was
in a terrible flux. Now, I feel freer to deal with
that world. And I miss writing awfully.

The latest news from Colby-Sawyer includes two
acquaintances of yours. One, Wally Ewing, who left
the college in January to manage–and invest in–a
business which failed, is now managing the Kearsarge
golf course, which the college recently purchased. The
other, Carl Cochran, will soon be ending his association

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with the college. Tomorrow, he will be feted by the English
department at Pat Anderson’s house. We are giving him a
pewter plate inscribed with Henry Adams’ words about
the teacher–“The teacher affects eternity; one can never
tell where his influence stops”–Also, we are notifying
him that the American studies program award will now
bear his name.

My day’s schedule calls! Blessings to you and Jane,
and happy spring!

Love,

Wes

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Dear Don,

I see I have done badly by the poem
and by Joey. I did not mean to, but
it seems I did not mean not to enough
to think the thing through.

I will send nothing out from now on
except my book. That’s my position, and
you may be certain I will not budge from it.

I am sorry for the upset I have caused.

Wes