Wesley McNair

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Thanks very much for your letter from The Atlantic and the
check. I thought Davison had taken “Old Trees” instead of “Trees
That Pass Us,” and so I am twice surprised. Anyway, it is
awfully good to be appearing in that magazine.
Also, thanks for your words about my “bad patch,” I’d
hope to be reborn soon, as the lack of sleep alone is killing me.
I am very sorry to learn of your own current bad patch.
Lest whatever “guilt” you may refer to makes you feel like a
bad man, please remember that you have saved my life
as a poet, and continue too do so. Whoever may be taking notes
on us both has a whole page about that.

I am in the process of rewriting “A Dream of Herman,”
and I have the thing done except for the last line. The problem
is, I still like the line, I knew it was perfect iambic
pentameter when I wrote it, and I liked the way the poem
found its way to the line, resolving itself in content and form.
I feel that way now. I sense you do not like the perfection
of the line, meter, especially given the lack of meter in the
rest of the poem (except for the movement toward iambic
in the next-to-last line). What really worries me is that you
seem so sure of your position in this, since that usually
means I am dead wrong. Yes, I say, I like the
line and am therefore unable to find a suitable alternative
for it. I even like “lovely,” because for me the reference to
“trees” gives the word a definition it wouldn’t ordinarily have/
takes away the vagueness you have mentioned.

I may very well be unable to see the poem clearly because
of my closeness to the material. I do know the tendency toward
sentimentality one has with this stuff. Perhaps that is what you
hear coming through in that last, perfect line. (Maybe you
hear sentimentality in other pieces?) I thought I was
saved from sentimentality of the closeness of the ride to a
hearse ride, and by certain lines which conjure up Herman,
and half suggest, at the same time, that he isn’t there (“as if
just back” “breathing the scale,” etc.)

Please tell me more if you can, about the last line!
I need to see it better. The shortest note will do…
Would it be any help to get rid of the first “as”?

Thanks to you and Joseph again for The Atlantic
publication!

Love,

Wes

P.S. Manuscript is now out to other places—U.
Alabama and the National Poetry Contest. Next month
is just Yale and Princeton Pittsburg—again! Will soon be
sending ten (published) poems to the Discovery/Nation
contest.

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Dear Joey,

Thank you for making
my day.

Best,

Wes

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Dear Don,

I do hope your “big son” is at least relating ok –
taking nourishment, and even drinking an occasional
beer, as I think I recollect he enjoys doing. At least
what happened can be mended – no doubt the mending
goes on right now, and that is good. My thoughts
are with you during this unpleasantness.

Thank you for sending the notes from Poetry. I
am awfully pleased to know the poems will appear there.
The lift this gives me is especially important at
this time, since, to tell the truth, I happen to be
going through a very down period. In the past
few weeks, I have found myself crying a lot,
immersed in regrets of various kinds, painfully
aware of the cost of running too hard in
my life. I am told “This Thing” happens to
others. Did “it” happen to you at roughly my
age? I have been, I think, fighting it off
for a couple of years, at least. But the thing
is here now, full force. I guess I am relieved

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in a way to have lost control, to have found this new
contact with my emotions; yet how much everything
hurts! And how irrelevant the “main memories”
of my life feel!

You can see, then, why I have not written to you
for a while. I believe I am ready to do better
with that now. But I did want you to know why
this lapse!

Even writing is hard to do – that is, poetry writing –
especially when I am in the process of discovering
how much about my “inner life” my poems contain,
even when they are about subjects quite removed
from personal experience. Of course, I always knew
all my poems were autobiographical, as everyone’s
are. It’s just that I never knew how much
autobiography was there!

Anyway, I do send a poem along – a new
version of a piece you saw earlier. I hope
to be sending other stuff, too, in the not-too-distant
future.

In the meantime, best to you, your son, and
your wife – and thank you again for all your notes.

Love,

Wes

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I haven’t written recently
because I have been on a trip
to see my brother in Wisconsin –
and I have been swallowed up by
holiday activities, which have included
an extended visit from my mother –
in law, bereft this season.
But I have been glad to get
your notes, one about my recent
poem (which I shall have to revise)
and the other about my sabbatical –
and I have appreciated your thoughts about both
things! Please let me know when you hear from
Nims! More poems later!  Love, Wes

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Dear Don,

Thanks for your words of support about my sabbatical
decision. I will remember that Hall principal and your
obsession about people wasting their lives doing sensible
things.

The news about the sabbatical is good. It was approved
just after I sent my last letter. That means 15
months of solid writing, a gift from heaven. I was
a bit worried about being granted a full year, since I
have had a lot of time away from the college recently
(was gone in 77-78, and am, of course, gone this term).
I believe the committee which approved my application
had the prerogative or recommending the half-year
alternative if it seemed American Studies was suffering
as a result of my absence. But I have been grooming
Pat Anderson for the past several months to replace me
as co-ordinator of American Studies (again, to
give myself more time for writing), and I am sure
the knowledge that Pat will be running things soon helped.
Also, I convinced Wally before the committee made its
decision – before I submitted my application, too – that
Carl should be replaced for the benefit of the A.S. program,

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this in spite of the college’s position that a “new Carl”
was not needed. As it turns out, the new person will be
able to take some of my courses, as will Pat.

The pay for a full-year sabbatical at Colby
is ¾ – not ½ – of the professor’s salary. The ¾ pay
policy was instituted at the college by faculty vote a
couple of years ago. Diane and I figure that my
salary, plus hers, plus the money we get for
renting part of the upstairs, will carry us through
so that Diane will be free during evenings for work
on her ceramics, I will be a “househusband”
(in the parlance of the talk shows), just as I am now.

As you can imagine, I am just ecstatic to have
this time. It will help me to capitalize on the
momentum I have gained from the current time
off.

And the momentum is significant. I have
several poems – many more than I have ever had
at any one time – finished and nearly finished in
my notebooks. And I am speaking here not of

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poems I have sent to you already, but of new work.
I am sure that with the addition time off, I will be
able to complete a large share of the second book I
am currently working on. For the first time in my life,
I can call myself a poet, without misgivings.

Thanks for your comment about the work of this
term, by the way. I can only say there is much
you haven’t yet seen. But there has been a lot
of work, and knowing how things might have gone,
I feel very fortunate in this. Naturally, I also
feel lucky to have had the sympathetic attention
of Fran McCullough, one of those who read the
poems I submitted for my N.E.A. grant. And I
am mindful of who first brought these poems to
her attention.

So in spite of my difficulty with that book
of mine, I feel blessed in my writing, and
in the continuous help and encouragement of
yourself and of Joey Amaryllis.

More poems after a while. In the meantime,
all the best to you in your writing, too. And
to Jane in hers.

Love,

Wes

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Dear Don,

Just so you won’t think you have a Louis Untermeyer
on your hands, I do want you to know I am aware
of the resonance of that last sentence in “Out, Out-.”
I think the sentence means just what you said.
On the one hand, it suggests the people are outrageous
in being so sensible as to turn to their affairs,
given the strange and violent death of the boy, and
the seeming malevolence of the saw that caused his
death. But the sentence also implies, as you say,
that there is little else for the people to do – and
besides, their ignorance (some of it willed) saves them
from living with “fright,” and perhaps from giving
their own hands to saws.

I happen to feel that a certain malevolence
hung over Herman (my father-in-law), especially
in his last days, and that he was aware of it, too.
So in a way, I see what the boy, with Frost, sees.
But I also identify with those people, and so
my quotation. With them, I feel the danger of
“fright” and the pull of “affairs.” More knowing

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than they are, I nonetheless respond as they respond.

There, I hope I have cleared things up.
I will try not to take so much for granted next
time I quote Frost!

Good that Joey is moving onward with
the new poems. I hope for some good news,
as my book has been rejected by Georgia,
with no more than a form letter. Earlier, I
got a note from Costanzo at Carnegie-Mellon
which said that he like the book very much,
but that he would not be able to publish it
this year as he had already accepted all the books
the current budget would allow. Did I tell you
I got a form rejection letter from Houghton
Mifflin some time back? Over two years after
the book’s completion, the rejections keep coming in.
I am not too down about that yet, but I do
hope something breaks by spring. Otherwise, I
could be in trouble.

Ah, well. To affairs! In that department

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I should tell you about my sabbatical application
I have decided to take a year-long sabbatical
next year if I can get it – and I think I can.
I haven’t ruled out a move from Colby, but I
do believe I should not pass up the possibility
of a year (15 mos. Actually) for writing if
I can get it. I would, besides, much rather have
completed poems than a job at any university,
however stable or prestigious.

I let you know how this goes. I should
know by mid-December.

The writing still goes slowly and well.
I shall hold all back, with no help from
Joey, for a while though.

Thanks to you and Joey for all your help,
and regards to Jane!

Love,

Wes

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Dear Don,

Diane and I both appreciated your note. I have
from time to time during this period thought about your
poem to your father. I imagine I will be writing about
my father-in-law, too. His life feels so small to
me now, and so unsung. I want to change that,
if I can.

Jane has our sympathy in her apprehension about
her father. We have known that feeling, too, and
it’s a difficult one to deal with.

But we press on – like the people of Frost’s poem
who “turned to their affairs.” There’s no other way.

I enclose a freshly typed version of the “Thugs”
poem, in case you would prefer it that way,
rather than in mimeographed form, as you have it
now. Suit yourself, and if Joey has already
sent the poem out, fine.

I also sent along a slightly revised version
of “Where I Live.” True, it has only been a
couple of weeks since I sent you the first version,

but I have been sitting on the first version for some
time already, and I’m therefore as sure as I’m
likely to be that the poem is ready in its present
form. Incidentally, I, too, worried about that
line-break you mentioned and played with it a great deal.
Your comment gave me the courage to make the
change of the enclosed. I do feel, though, that
there shouldn’t be a comma after “gas station.”

Please tell Joey, then, that it’s ok to send
out “Where I Live” and “Trees That Pass Us.”

And thank you, as usual, for your help.

Love,

Wes

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20 November 1980

Wesley McNair
Box 43
North Sutton, NH 03260

Dear Wes and Diane,

I am so sorry about Diane’s father. It is a wretched
time. This December will be the twenty-fifth anniversary
of my own father’s death, and last October I turned older
than he was on the day he died. He is still there for me,
[Written in margin: I know you know the poem.]
freshly, around the corner, with the familiar sound that his
feet made walking – only he is younger than I am now. Very
strange.

Jane’s father, who is seventy-six now, is chronically
ill. He has had cancer twice, had a little stroke last year,
has congestive heart failure – and they may, or may not, –
be coming out for Christmas. We worry about him, as you might
expect. How old was your father, Diane? He certainly packed
things in together, didn’t he? Horrid.

Wes, many thanks for the poem, which Joey will make
excellent use of. Very good to have it now, and I think that
we will do better by it. Good for them, in their fecklessness.

Best as ever, love, and sorrow…

Don

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Dear Don,

Have just gotten back from Keene, where Diane’s
father’s funeral just took place. He was in the hospital
for three weeks, had a broken hip, which (because he
was a “bleeder”) was complicated to fix. Eventually
the operation on the hip led to two other operations –
one to prevent a blood clot in his leg from moving, the
other to remove a very diseased gall bladder,
which was preventing the blood from clotting, even after
medication for coagulation was administered. But the
bleeding wouldn’t stop; indeed, there was much more
of it after the latter operations. And so he died.
It’s been a sad time. That guy meant a lot to all of us.

The fact is, all the news I have for you today
is upsetting. I just learned from the editors of
The Journal of Popular Culture that “The Thugs of
Old Comics” was never published by them, even though
they sent me a note of acceptance back in the fall
of 1976. The poem was to be published, or so I thought,
during my year out of the country. It occurred to me
the other day that I never did receive a copy of
the issue the poem appeared in, so I wrote to ask

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about getting one. No one there has any record of
receiving or accepting the poem, I am told, and, of course,
it never did appear.

It is the sort of half-assedness I’ve come to expect
from The Popular Culture Association; which seems to
screw everything up, from conferences to subscriptions.
Initially, I was ticked at the magazine editors,
as you can imagine, but I have come to think the
foul-up may be to my advantage because the poem is,
I think, a good one that better magazines might be
interested in. Anyway, I do want you and Joey to
know that I have told the JPC I will publish
the poem elsewhere – called to this, actually –
and the editor I spoke with – Pat Browne –
sheepishly agreed concurred with my decision to do so.

I therefore enclose a copy of the poem. It would
perhaps go well with the “pop” material which
Nims has accepted. Or maybe, do you think, at
The New Yorker? Whatever Joey decides to do with
it, I will be ok, I’m sure. He knows best, and he
has just proved it again by working the recent
combination with Nims!

Do you recall your suggestion that the word “beat”
in my earlier version of the poem might be changed to “beating”?
I did make that change, as you see, but I am still a bit
worried that the “-ing’s” pile up at the end of the poem.
If you think not, I’m happy. —And speaking of the end,
here I am at the bottom of the pages – so I’ll stop.

Love, Wes

THE THUGS OF OLD COMICS

At first the job is a cinch like
they said. They manage to get the bank teller
a couple of times in the head and blow the vault door so high
it never comes down. Money bags line the shelves
inside like groceries. They are rich, richer
than they can believe. Above his purple suit the boss
is grinning half outside of his face.
Two goons are taking the dough in their arms
like their first women. For a minute nobody sees
the little thug with the beanie is sweating drops
the size of hot dogs and pointing
straight up. There is a blue man flying
down through the skylight and landing with his arms
crossed. They exhale their astonishment
into small balloons. “What the,” they say,
“What the,” watching their bullets drop
off his chest over and over. Soon he begins to talk
about the fight against evil, beating them half to death
with his fists. Soon they are picking themselves up
from the floor of the prison. Out the window Superman
is just clearing a tall building and couldn’t care less
when they shout his name through the bars. “We’re trapped!
We got no chance!” they say, tightening their teeth,

thinking, like you, how it always gets down
to the same old shit: no fun, no dough,
no power to rise out of their bodies.

– Wesley McNair

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Dear Don,

Here I am with another of my famous
second thoughts. If you have no violent
objections, I would prefer this version, with
“mini pads”, rather than the other, with “maxi pads.”
A small change, I know, but important
enough to make this the final and definitive
revision.

Thanks.

Love,

Wes

HAIR ON TELEVISION

On the soap opera the doctor
explains to the young woman with cancer
that each day is beautiful.

Hair lifts from their heads
like clouds, like something to eat.

It is the hair of the married couple
getting in touch with their real feelings for the first time
on the talk show,

the hair of young people on the beach
drinking Cokes and falling in love.

And the man who took the laxative and waters his garden
next day with the hose wears the hair

so dark and wavy even his grandchildren are amazed,
and the woman who never dreamed mini pads
could be so convenient wears it.

For the hair is changing people’s lives.
It is growing like wheat above the faces

of game show contestants opening the doors
of new convertibles, of prominent businessmen opening
their hearts to Christ, and it is growing

straight back from the foreheads of vitamin experts,
detergent and dog food experts helping ordinary housewives discover

how to be healthier, get the clothes cleaner and serve
dogs meals they love in the hair.

And over and over on television the housewives,
the news teams bringing all the news faster
and faster, and the new breed of cops winning the fight
against crime, are smiling, pleased to be at their best,

proud to be among the literally millions of Americans everywhere
who have tried the hair, compared the hair and will never go back
to life before the active, the caring, the successful, the incredible hair.