Hall to McNair: October 7, 1983

Letter from Hall to McNair, October 7, 1983, Colby College Special Collections

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Wes McNair7

October 1983
Box 43
North Sutton, NH 03260

Dear Wes,

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.

Best as ever,

Don