Wesley McNair
Hominy Pot Rd.
North Sutton, NH 03260
Dear Wes,
Joey just made a submission to the New Yorker.
We don’t like Perley Hunt quite so much as other recent things,
but will be happy to send it out. It seems thin for its length, to take
kind of a long way to say things…wonder about “alternate/other” as
redundancy… I wonder if I might like it better if it were speeded up
simply by being printed as one stanza. It seems a little slow to me.
Then the last two lines…I guess I really doubt them. The positive
side of “miracle” seems a little strained, maybe, and maybe as if you
were trying to drag a lyrical or glorified ending out of your hat…and
really if there were not so much space, and therefore delay, one might
come on the last couplet more as a combination of surprise and as of
matter of fact…a funny combination but I think it might be better.
If there were any other way to trim it down a bit, make it move more
quickly, maybe I would like it better. But I don’t dislike it a whole
lot either. I like the old fellow, and think he is well observed.
Good luck with Dartmouth. I hope you can continue to write and
use your time…and at the same time I hope you like it, and I hope they
like you – and that it may lead to some better form of employment in the
future.
