18 April 1984
Wes McNair
Hominy Pot Rd.
North Sutton, NH 03260
Dear Wes,
I think you probably have had a letter in the meantime. It
has been a difficult time. Monday Jane got out of the hospital, where
she spent a whole week. She is doing better. Complications with various
illnesses, getting adjusted to a new drug…but we are optimistic, and
she is feeling better.
The poem goes to old Howard today.
Tell me how the Monitor interview went. I thought he was a good
interviewer.
It has been a difficult spring. Three weeks in Connecticut with
my mother’s illness. I have been on the road a lot. I went off to
Arkansas and Pennsylvania while Jane was in the hospital – and I did not
want to go; but Jane clearly wanted me to go very much. I burned up the
telephone wires, I’ll tell you. Sunday night I got back from Pennsylvania,
and drove up and got her in the hospital, and found her better – as
I had felt she was, talking with her over the phone.
[Written in margin: Did you see her poem in the NYer?]
I don’t even think of being a poet anymore! Possibly some day…
(Actually I am discouraged. But Iam [sic] terribly frantic, life is
very hectic, illnesses, being on the road…and trying to finish the
new edition of Writing Well and A Writer’s Reader.) Come June, I suspect,
things will be better.
Love as ever,
Don |