Thank you for the note–and again to
Joey for the Ironwood.
I will send the poems you mentioned
to Jerry Costanzo–excepting, that is Thruway, which I’m currently disenchanted
with.
How do you like my paper? I didn’t think
I ordered this short stationery, so had
to re-order the long stuff. Soon, everyone
will begin to imagine I am professional
and thoroughly organized!
Love to you and our
afflicted friend, Jane,
Wes
Editorial note about this letter: The text of the poem mentioned in this letter, “Thruway,” is below:
THRUWAY
Giants come out of the horizon
with spaces in their hands.
Far off a bridge lifts
it dinosaur back. The road
shifts, opening a city.
This is thruway, this is the great
hum that holds our cars
in the motionless center
of motion. We are the drivers,
each on his way, each
going nowhere with others.
A note from McNair about this letter: Though I eventually pulled this poem from circulation as too weak, I used its opening image of pylons coming out of the horizon years later for my long narrative, “My Brother Running.”
Maybe my praise of Ironwood is eccentric…
but it is good, and Cuddihy is hard to satisfy.
I’m delighted.
There is a bunch of four poems which has
been turned down by a lot of good places –
other poems snatched away from their companion –
ship. I wonder if you would be interested in
letting Costanzo see them? I speak of The Minister’s
Death, Thruway, My Brother Inside… The Before
People…
There is another bunch at the New Yorker
right now of course.
Of course there are other magazines –
possibly more prestigious than Three Rivers…
but, as you know, I think it might be a good
notion.
If you want to do it, just send your
copies yourself in your own name directly to
Gerry… Then, when he replies, if he does
not take all of them, just let me know which
ones are still available…
2/
But if you would rather Joey sent them out
elsewhere, just say the word.
I just dictated the new letter to AWP – having
received a copy of the old on Saturday. If it
looks OK when it gets typed up, I will mail it to-
day. If it doesn’t, I will mail it Friday or Sat-
urday.
In the meantime, we look forward immensely
to seeing you Friday night. Hooray for the celebra-
tion.
I think it would be best if I saw the old
letter. Please get them to send it to me.
Then I will bring it up to date and get it
back to them right away.
I think it might be best if I did not seem to contradict myself, which I might possibly
do, according to the vagaries of the moment.
I mean, simply by calling attention to one
thing rather than another…
I don’t actually know much about Colby-
Sawyer. I think that Jack Jensen may have the
blinders on, and of course Carl – whom I see
from time to time – is retired.
I am so frightened for you all! Awful.
And of course it is not only awful for the
future – it is pretty awful in the present.
Sometimes I hear about jobs on the market.
I know of nothing right now. I will not forget
you – much as I would hate to think of you going
to West Texas or anything… Love as ever,
I’m in the process of preparing my dossier with AWP for a
job search, and I would like to have three or four up-to-date
letters in my file. Would you be willing to update the letter you
wrote for me three years ago? I would be happy to get AWP to send
you the letter you wrote then, if you’d like.
As I guess you know, things have gone from bad to worse at
Colby-Sawyer. Enrollment is now at 405 “full-time equivalents”.
The faculty has had no raise for two years, and while one is promised
for later on this year, the extra money won’t go far–especially
since we have begun this fall making “donations” (as the adminis-
tration calls them) to our medical and dental benefits. Worst of
all, I am forced to work more and more outside the college to pay
my bills–thus, there’s less time for poetry.
Not that the Devins Award–or any award–will get me a job in
the current climate. But with one kid in college, and the other
soon to be there, I must have job security, and a bigger salary–
or lat least the opportunity, through a job in some state university
system, to get my kids free tuition.
I enclosed a stamped, addressed envelope, in the hope you will
be able to use it for a recommendation letter, whenever you may
have a moment to spare. Incidentally, I’ve just furnished U/
Missouri with galley corrections. The thing is now in production,
believe it or not, to be completed before the end of November.
I can’t wait!
Thanks for the letter. I dictate this on Sunday, October
2nd, but will not be able to mail it for a week, because I leave
early tomorrow morning and will be gone all week. Therefore the
poems will not go out until next week – but that is just as well.
The New Yorker is absolutely overwhelmed in the month of September…
probably better to delay until mid-October. I generally do
myself.
I should say that I intend to send some poems to
Costanzo, when I get a chance. It is not a bad magazine, of
the second rank…and he has been such a good friend to poetry –
not to mention us.
Jane can ride comfortably as far as the Hideaway. Or
her discomfort is not debilitating… But Boston – and a sub-
sequent airplane ride – is out, for the moment.
I did not recognize that “After the Ice”, still submitted
to a magazine, was in the book coming out so soon. That is,
I did not go through the Table of Contents, after the book was
accepted, to see if anything was out. You can count on me not to,
I suppose. You can also count on my not to remember things!
I believe it is because of the multiplicity of details in my
life – three to four thousand letters a year – rather than
Alzheimer’s… I am much worse on the telephone. I always
talk with people – about a reading, about a recommendation or
something – and end by saying: please write me a letter and tell
me what I just said. It is always wise to remind me of things, I
am sorry to say. I do forget a lot.
No sweat. I will write a note to the magazine that has
“After the Ice,” and it will also serve to remind them that they
have had some poems for a long time.
You did put the exclamation point in, that you were asking
about.
I have a couple of minor reservations here and there…but
I really like The Faith Here Healer, and I think I read it better now.
I think my first reading was not terribly good.
I think that it would be a good idea to send
Costanzo some poems – because it is not a bad maga-
zine, because he has been your fan, because it might
be helpful to have him in your corner, for the next
book.
The older poems that you mentioned are still out
at various magazines. When they come back, why
don’t I send them to you, for you to send to Constanzo?
I think perhaps it
would be better if you sent poems to him, rather than
Joey. But be sure to keep everything straight with
[typed on other side of postcard] old Joey… Joey will be in
touch.
I’m sorry to hear that Jane can’t ride comfortably.
That leaves out plans for a dinner–for now, anyway.
But yes, maybe we could get together sometime soon. I hope so.
You ask whether you now have any poems that are
forthcoming in the book. I assume you know that “After
the Ice” is in the book, since I sent you a revised
copy of the manuscript with that poem in the last section.
None of the other poems you have is in the book. And yes,
I have gotten permission to reprint all poems previously
published.
Just to make sure about which poems you should have,
I offer the following list of titles which are not in the
book, or in any magazine thus far: When Paul Flew Away;
The Portuguese Dictionary (you ask, “What about The Portuguese?”–
I meant this poem); My Brother Inside the Revolving
Doors; The Before People; The Minister’s Death; The Faith
Healer; Remembering Aprons; Killing the Animals; The Last
Time Shorty Towers Fetched the Cows.
I’m curious: Are there no reservations about
2/
The Faith Healer? I did revise it some after you wrote
your misgivings about the poem this past summer. But
I will remember the misgivings–
Well. If there are none now, about this or
any of the other poems, I’d love to have Joey
send them out.
Please give dear, ailing Jane a pat from us.
Love to you both,
Wes
PS–Neurotically enough, I’m curious if I remembered
to put an exclamation point after the word
“inclusion” in the third-from-last stanza of
Remembering Aprons. I note that I didn’t have one
in the copy I typed for myself. Would you please check?
Editorial note about this letter: Below is an anthology of the poems in for the “fall campaign” of 1983.
I think the new batch is great and Joey is
ready to send them out if you are.
The others will continue to go out. No new
copies needed. I take it of course that none of
them are in the manuscript about coming out. I
also take it that you have handled the permissions
business, and that none of them were forthcoming
poems – I mean, in the new book. Amazing about the
speed of the book.
Gerald Costanzo has asked me to send poems to the Three Rivers Poetry Journal, but I am reluctant because I’d
rather try to publish in magazines with bigger names at
this point. Perhaps I should wait and see which poems
do not make it into those mags in the current cycle–
then send some of the then unpublished verses to Costanzo.
