UNH

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Dear Don,

How wonderful it is that Joey has managed to
interest John Nims in the poems! I have long hoped
someone would see something of worth in “Hair
on Television,” and “The Fat Enter Heaven” is a poem
I feared no one other than you, Jane, Joey and I
would like. I am very glad they will appear in Poetry
and very grateful to Joey for his good efforts and his
continuing faith.

Of course Nims is correct, as you say, that “tampons”
should be changed. I enclose a touched-up revision,
which I hope he, and you, will find acceptable.

Contrary to my stated intentions of two or three
weeks ago, I also enclose two new poems. The reason
is I am worried Joey is running out of stuff to
send out. Where he is getting other poems to mail
to Poetry – and to the Atantic – I cannot imagine,
but he must be at the absolute bottom of the barrel.

Would the two poems help Joey with his attempts
at the Atlantic (suggested, I believe, in an earlier
letter?) Or anywhere else?

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Please let me know if you think to, and thanks again
and again for all you both have done in my behalf
at Poetry!

Love,

Wes

WHERE I LIVE

You will come into an antique town
whose houses move apart
as if you’d interrupted
a private discussion. This is the place
you must pass through to get there.
Imagining lives tucked in
like china plates, continue driving.
Beyond the landscaped streets,
beyond the last colonial
gas station and unsolved
by zoning is a road. It will take you
to old farmhouses and trees
with car-tire swings.
Signs will announce hairdressing
and nightcrawlers.
The timothy grass will run beside you
all the way to where I live.

– Wesley McNair

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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

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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

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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

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(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.

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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.