Wesley McNair

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Dear Don,

In my haste to take care of my
own business in my last letter, I
neglected to tell you how much
I – we all – enjoyed your book,
The Ox-Cart Man. I expect it
will be in our family for a long
time to come. I can easily see why
kids enjoy it, just as the kid
in me enjoyed the original poem.
Maybe it will even touch some
of them to like poetry!
Anyway, I’m glad I finally
got a chance to see it. It’s
a very nice little book.

Love,

Wes

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Dear Don,

Yes, a later revision of the poem I just
sent. Nor does this revision rid me of
apprehensions – though I do think the title (my original one)
is better, along with the description of the
second baseman, and the fielders with their gloves.

Here it is anyway, with apologies
for the confusion I’m causing.

Love,

Wes

P.S. (August 31) – Diane told me
yesterday of your congratulations and of
the significance of “placement” in
Poetry. Both things make me very happy.
And they remind me that I owe
Joey $6.00_, which I send with profoundest
gratitude to both of you.

THE SLOW CHILDREN PLAY BASEBALL

The girl with mild eyes stands
with both feet on first base,
and the shortstop smiles at nothing
he can remember exactly.
Now the large-faced boy on second
raises his hands, making the precise shape
of a ball. The ball
is already over the outfield.
Some are watching it fall,
an outfielder, the astonished batter
beginning to run. Slowly they see
it is time to wave their arms
and let their voices go. Slowly, joyfully,
the fielders are throwing their gloves,
and the batters are jumping
higher and higher in this moment
for which they have come,
this forgetting so complete
they do not know why they are shouting.

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Dear Don,

I am worried about the enclosed poem.
Will you please tell me if it is any good?

Thanks,
Wes

THE RETARDED CHILDREN PLAY BASEBALL

The girl with mild eyes stands
with both feet on first base,
and the shortstop smiles at nothing
he can remember exactly.
Now the soft-faced boy on second
raises his hands, making the precise shape
of a ball. The ball
is already over the outfield.
Some are watching it fall,
an outfielder, the astonished batter
beginning to run. Slowly they see
it is time to wave their arms
and let their voices go. Slowly, joyfully,
the fielders are hurling their gloves,
and the batters are jumping
higher and higher in this moment
for which they have come,
this forgetting so complete
they do not know why they are shouting.

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Dear Don,

My response to your recent letter has been delayed because I’ve
been away for a couple of days. But it is good to have your advice
about E.V. Griffith and your comments about the fat poem.

I will be careful not to send Griffith anything unpublished,
and I will certainly revise the fat poem, keeping your suggestions
in mind as I do so. I’m still not sure what I will do about the
poem’s epigraph. You are certainly right about the ascription,
I’ve come to feel, and you may well be right about leaving the
whole business out. Later on, I will perhaps be able to see more
clearly what is needed.

In the meantime, the sending-out of the manuscript continues.
Viking and Random House responded positively to my preliminary letter,
the same one I sent Atlantic Monthly Press and others, and so I’ve
just sent copies of the book to them.

As always, I shall keep you informed about whatever may develop.
I hope your writing goes well, and that you are keeping cool in
spite of our heavy humidity which no rain seems to lighten.

Best,

Wes

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Dear Don,

Foiled again. I had thought the “Fat” poem was
finished. But you have convinced me that I should wait
and try it again later.

You mentioned that I should probably drop the
epigraph. I am troubled by this because the
epigraph provides background for the stanza

Others saw the fat
Was their responsibility

(remember the fat people “had to be fat because it was
cold”). I can perhaps write about “cold”
without the epigraph – or leave cold out entirely –
but I can’t see how to make the above stanza
work without it (the epigraph).

Maybe I could kill the above stanza, but I’d
hate to.

Anyway, I am pleased to have your comments
on the poem, and I will be sure to read them
again when the time comes to re-revise. If

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anything comes to mind re: the comments I’ve made
here, please let me know.

In the meantime, I am sending you “Calling
Harold,” grateful that you liked it and found it
complete, however small the poem may be. I
guess I will just write Peter Davison and tell
him I have passed on his request for poems
to the Amaryllis agency, which handles my
poems. Does this seem right? Then Joey
can do what he wants to do about it.

I am also sending “When Superman Died.”
Thanks for clarifying.

Will you please tell Jane that E.V. Griffith,
Editor of Poetry Now, is looking for poems
for an anthology called Poets Now, “an
anthology of 80 new poets who seem likely to
win growing recognition in the decade ahead.”
The deadline for submissions is November 30.
Griffith’s address is 3118 K Street, Eureka,
California 95501. He’s asking for 10-15
poems from each submitting poet.

3/

As you may have guessed, I am interested
in submitting poems to Griffith, especially
since he has accepted work of mine in the past,
for both Hearse and Poetry Now. I have not
submitted yet, because I’m not sure whether I
or Joey should do it. I’ve been thinking of
mailing Griffith Going Back Poems – the whole
book – so he’ll have plenty to choose from.
If Joey feels the submission should be made
through the agency, I’ll simply send him a copy
of the book, complete with envelope and stamps.

Please ask him about this. Thanks for everything.

Love,

Wes

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Dear Don,

I’m not sure which “Superman” poem you ask about,
since there are two. One (“The Thugs…”) has been published.
the other (“When Superman Died…”) has not. If you
meant “When Superman Died,” I’ll be glad to send it
right away – just let me know!

You’ve no doubt noticed that I’m including two recent
poems which you haven’t seen. I was planning to send
them later for your “judgement,” [sic] but something’s come up.
I’ve just received a letter from Peter Davison, whom I
wrote to ask about publishing Going Back Poems through
Atlantic Monthly Press. He said no to that, but I wants
me [sic] to send him some poems to look at for The Atlantic
Monthly. I would like to send the enclosed two, if you
think they are reasonably OK, along with two which Joey
currently has – ie, “Old Trees” and “The Fat Enter
Heaven.” Oh – maybe also “Hair on Television.”

But I will certainly not give Davison any of
the Joey poems unless he says they are available,
and unless you think it advisable to send these
particular ones. It may well be that Joey has hopes

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for them elsewhere – or maybe you feel that they (or
the enclosed 2) are not appropriate for The Atlantic.
Whatever, I await your view of all this.

Incidentally these 2 are not the only poems I’ve
finished recently. I’ve written two others, but I
am holding onto those because I’ve come to feel that
they might become segments of another poem. I will
certainly be sending these poems and others in some
future batch.

Thanks for your help!

Love,

Wes

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Dear Don,

Thank you for your bracing letter. I have mailed the book to
U. Illinois and Carnegie-Mellon–am about to mail it to U. Georgia. I have
also sent several letters about the book to the “big houses”, as you advised.
Needless to say, I am thankful that my publishing the book matters to you,
whatever the consequences might be, and I take hope in your assurance that
I will one day publish it. I will try to remember your warning about the
irony underlying all apparent successes for the writer.

You mentioned that you are in a period of uncertainty about your own
work. Perhaps this is a good time to tell you the story of a poem you wrote
not long ago which hit me like the dropped safe of the old cartoon, and
which helped me to write a poem–and later other poems–like it, even though
different from it.

I am speaking of your “Waterfowl” poem, which appeared on the back page
of APR 4 or 5 years ago. I believed then, and still believe, that no one
has written a funnier poem than that one. I loved its reliance on sources
in the popular culture. I loved how reckless and how wonderfully controlled
it was in its form and in its humor. And I was struck by its wonderful mixture
of humor and desperate seriousness. I read the poem shortly before I wrote
“The Thugs of Old Comics”. It was your poem and certain poems by Edward
Field that I thought of as I was doing “The Thugs”. Without your poem, I may
never have been able to complete my poem.

I am sure your poem also helped open the way to other humorous “pop-
cultural” pieces which I have worked on since “The Thugs”, and continue to
work on. While it is true that I wrote “The Little Louey Comic” and “The
Characters of Forgotten Dirty Jokes” before writing “The Thugs”, I did not
see the full possibilities of “pop” poems until your poem, Field’s poems
and the writing of “The Thugs”. Do you remember telling me once (and how
thrilled I was!) that “The Thugs” was the “perfect poem”, the poem “The
Little Louey Comic” wanted to become? What you did not know was that your
poem assisted in the completion of “The Thugs”, helping me to go beyond
“Louey”, and later to write poems like “Hair on Television” and one I am
doing now on “before/after” ads.

Of course, your poems about the region of [inserted: northern] New England are also very
important to me as a writer. They show me that solid work can still be done
about the place which inspired the poems of Dickinson, Robinson and Frost,
and they fill me with possibilities for my own regional writing. But I wanted
to write you here about a poem which actually influenced my writing, and
besides, I have written already how much I think of Kicking the Leaves,
whatever doubts you may have about your recent writing.

I hope I managed to lift your spirits a bit with this small
testimonial. Even if I haven’t, I thank you very much for that poem and for
writing it at the time I needed it!

Love,

Wes

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Dear Don,

Hoping that I might hear something positive from U.
Pittsburg about my book, I have held off writing to you
until now. You will remember that last year Ed Ochester
at Pittsburg asked me to resubmit my manuscript this
year. Well, the thing got rejected again. Ochester
said he liked the “Going Back to 5th Grade” sections
and “Faces of Americans,” and he re-invited me to
resubmit next year.

Weary of resubmitting – also to Yale, where the
book was also rejected – I am quite down about things
right now. I did not realize, I guess, how difficult
publishing the book was going to be. And yet I should
not be ungrateful, I know. I am very lucky to have
the NEA grant, and besides, others have tried longer
than I have so far to get books published, with no
better results. I will certainly come out of this,
eventually. I have put entirely too much stock in
the Pittsburg possibility – that is the problem. I am
in the process of resolving really and truly not to
“expect” in the future.

The thing to do now, I guess, is to send the book
to other places. Would it do any good at all to

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send it to places like Viking, Doubleday and Knopf?
That is, would these houses be likely to even read an
unsolicited first book of poems? I suppose you will
say “no” to this, and anyway, I am thinking
mainly of university presses for the book – Illinois,
Princeton and Carnegie-Mellon – if you think these
are good choices. Should I mail it to U. Georgia,
where Paul Zimmer now is? My main interest at this
point is in being published at a press whose books
are likely to be reviewed widely – and picked up
later by anthologies.

Earlier, you mentioned the possibility of Houghton
Mifflin. I do intend to send HM poems for
review in the fall, the procedure for those who wish
to qualify for consideration in the “New Poetry”
series. Since I have little confidence in my own
capacity to choose the “review” poems (my choices
last year, you may recall, led to my being
disqualified), I wonder if you would mind suggesting
poems to send when the time comes? I would
appreciate your help here, though of course I realize
that whatever help one gets, (to use your words) “it’s
a lottery.”

3/

I am happy with the writing I am doing now,
in spite of my current depression. (As I write
of “depression,” it comes to me that last night
I dreamed all night of falling – an interesting
new expression of the vertical metaphor which I
seem to write about so much!) I have decided
that I will not trouble you with the individual
poems I complete, as I have done in the past-
that I will send you small batches of poems instead.
My first batch is not yet ready, but I am writing
daily and steadily, and you shall see results in
due time.

There is, after all, no one whose opinion I value
more – or half as much – as yours. It is my
extraordinary luck that you have been there
with concern and encouragement, even in the
most discouraging times. That gives me hope
that the long wait will one day prove worthwhile.
I am everlastingly grateful for your faith
in my poems.

Love,

Wes

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Dear Don,

Finally I find the time to write you about the poems
you sent!

I do like them — all of them — very much. I believe
that “6 October 1980” is one of the most moving poems
you ever wrote, so complicated and profound are the
feelings of sonship which it expresses. It is a
wonderful thing. “Epithalamion” is also a wonderful
poem. The “positioning” of each of your reluctant
characters is perfect — Emily in the cellar “vanishing
against a pillar” (just the right word, that
“against”!) and Walt in the belltower with
the muscular young sexton. I love that piece. And
I love “Sonnet.” The last stanza of that poem is
just delicious in its sounds and imagery. I
believe that “Marbles,” “A Novel in Two Volumes,”
and “Scenic View” are also good, strong poems.

I have suggestions about how certain aspects
of the other poems might be revised – suggestions
which I hope will be helpful. One of my favorite
poems in its potential^”Poultry” is still, I think, not
quite finished. I very much like the way seasons
turn throughout the poem, the way the life and death
of poultry suggests to both boy participant and
adult narrator the transcience [sic] of human life. What
I feel the poem needs is a fuller reference to Luther…
or perhaps references to people other than Luther, who

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were alive once to eat the meals the poultry made, and who
are now dead. Without more allusions to Luther (at the
table, “leading in the singing of “hymns”, your word noted on
page 4? with others?) the poem’s conclusion seems to me
arbitrary. I do find the descriptions of chicks, chickens
and roosters most convincing, however…I love the
rooster section. One other question: In the 4th
stanza, should the phrase “when the egg making frenzy”
be changed to a phrase which more closely approximates
the other indented phrases of the section, which seem to
convey the continuous action of the hens in time
(moving toward “consumed”)?

About “The Glass.” If I have your intentions right:
it seems to me the poem should be presented in 3 stanzas.
I think the first stanza should speak of the world of
“permanence”; the second stanza, about the speaker’s
“heroic” movement through time, which leads to reading
the news about Emily Farr’s death; the third stanza,
about the glass. I especially like the image of the “old
man carrying buckets/among pale ferns under
wavering birches,” and I do believe this poem could
be quite wonderful, even though it is not (or so I
think) fully realized at this point.

“Fires for Tending.” I feel the poem should begin

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with the reading of the obituaries. The prologue of the first
three lines gives so strong an emphasis to the comfortable
domestic rituals and environment of the narrator’s
present that the movement into the past does not
achieve the importance that I believe it ought to have
in the poem. I feel that if the first 3 lines were cast
and the ordering were changed slightly, the narrator would
read his news, recollect the experience of the past,
and return to the surroundings of his present life,
feeling his old attachment to them, along with an
unsettling detachment. (This tension between attachment
and detachment comes through wonderfully well, I think,
in the last 2 lines.) Another thing about the conclusion:
I feel that the story should not be characterized as
“ordinary,” since that characterization stills the reverberations
that the memory might have. Incidentally, I wonder if
the full-out statement declaration of the last stanza – the “I
will preserve” should be replaced with a phrasing
which stresses the struggle against the fact of
forgetting…or against “the forgetful kingdom of death,”
as J.C. Ransom called it. I don’t mean to suggest
that the “struggle” should be expressed in any dramatic way –
only that it might be hinted at… I do hope I
have not written here about a poem which I might
write, rather than about the poem which this one might
become.

4/

“Whip Poor Will.” I feel that the last line of the poem
should refer somehow to the whip-poor-will’s “voice-lessness”
during the day. Stilling the bird’s song would be a bitter
way, I think, to bring the narrator and reader back to the
“real” world of the last stanza. Also, I like your
penned-in lines “but the real/bird lifts away”
better than the 1st and 2nd lines that appear in
the typed version of the last stanza. I wonder, too,
if the whip-poor-will’s flight into “far dark fields”
in the stanza one might be more strongly linked with
the bird’s flight into the narrator’s dream, which is
suggested in stanza two. The possible link between the
two seems to be cut off by the rooster’s crowing and
by the light of the second stanza. I think that the
“cock-crow” should be cut out, and that the darkness
of stanza one should extend into stanza 2, at least
until the reader is able to catch the connection
between the flight into dark fields and the flight
into the mind. The light, then, might foreshadow
the awakening to “reality” which eventually happens –
even as it (the light) suggests Wesley Wells,
who began his day at dawn.

If I have misread your intentions anywhere
with my suggestions recommendations, I am sorry. I certainly want
to be a help to you and not a hindrance. I feel this

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is a very strong group of poems, and I thank you
very much for letting me see them.

But no more ado. I must get this into
the mail!

With love,

Wes
[McNair]

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Dear Don,

How lovely to receive your poems in
the mail. How much I am enjoying
them! I have read them already several
times.

I am writing this letter to thank
you for them – and to let you know
that though I will not be sending them
immediately, I will certainly be
“working on them.” I always need time
to let poems settle – my own or
anyone else’s.

I promise a letter about them
soon – am taking them with me
to Detroit and will be back with
a full response. Thank you again
for letting me see them.

Love,

Wes