{"id":1337,"date":"2012-02-14T18:13:56","date_gmt":"2012-02-14T22:13:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=1337"},"modified":"2013-10-17T17:44:39","modified_gmt":"2013-10-17T21:44:39","slug":"hall-to-mcnair-august-29-1979","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/hall-to-mcnair-august-29-1979\/","title":{"rendered":"Hall to McNair: August 29, 1979"},"content":{"rendered":"<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"vertical-align: top; background: white; float: left;\"><a class=\"shutterset\" title=\"Letter from Hall to McNair, August 29, 1979. Colby College Special Collections.\" href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/01\/Hall-McNair-19790829-001-colby.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-2078 alignleft\" style=\"border: 1px solid gray; background: white;\" alt=\"Hall-to-McNair-08-29-1979\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/01\/Hall-McNair-19790829-001-colby.jpg\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #808080;\">[Click image to view]<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"background: white; padding-left: 30px;\">29 August 1979<\/p>\n<p>Wes McNair<br \/>\nBox 43<br \/>\nNorth Sutton, NH 03260<\/p>\n<p>Dear Wes,<\/p>\n<p>Good to have your letter. These are good poems. I have a couple<br \/>\nof questions. I guess I cannot quite see how they grow o\u2019s. I can<br \/>\nsee them growing over or under. I guess I can see one branch going over,<br \/>\nand another under, which do not touch but visually cross each other\u2026<br \/>\nbut an o seems too symmetrical, possibly? I love the cadence and<br \/>\nfeeling of this poem, and then I am a bit disturbed by finding it<br \/>\nvisually not exactly perceptible.<\/p>\n<p>Again, I like the language of Driving Poem very very much &#8211; but<br \/>\nI am troubled by the syntax, wanting it to be a sentence and finding<br \/>\nno way to turn it into a sentence. Do I take it that the \u201croom\u201d is<br \/>\nthe driver\u2019s seat of the car? Or perhaps more accurately the car itself?<br \/>\nI might wonder about having a first line like: \u201cThis is the room\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Joey would always like to have more poems to send out, if you<br \/>\nfeel like it letting him.<\/p>\n<p>I do have considerable hope that you will find your GM &#8211; or that<br \/>\nsome decent GM will find you. And in fact, I have good hope for Harper<br \/>\nand Row. It does not mean any more than it says, but it is a fact<br \/>\nthat Fran McCullough likes the manuscript very much. She wants to look<br \/>\nat it some more, and confirm herself in her feelings &#8211; and I don\u2019t think<br \/>\nthis is a sinister doubt. But the problem is elsewhere. It takes her<br \/>\na long time, and a good deal of effort, to get a book of poems accepted<br \/>\nby the powers that be. The poetry-schedule is full up for a while.<br \/>\nShe cannot even bring the subject up, to the powers that be, for a while.<br \/>\nAnd when she does, if she does decide to push your book as I hope and<br \/>\nmostly believe she will, the powers that be may not take to it,<br \/>\nor may feel that they cannot take on another books of poems at that time.<br \/>\nTherefore, you are to be pleased that she likes her work, you are to be<br \/>\nhopeful but not too hopeful, and you are to sit tight! OK?<\/p>\n<p>None of which should deter you from going right ahead with revising<br \/>\nyour manuscript and so forth. About the \u201cdirty\u201d poems, I too feel<br \/>\nambivalent. I am not sure that they belong there &#8211; but I am not certain<br \/>\nthat they don\u2019t, either. Make your decision against them this time.<br \/>\nBe prepared, possibly for some argument on another occasion.<\/p>\n<p>Best as ever,<\/p>\n<p>Don<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/trees-that-pass-us-in-our-cars\/\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-1337\" data-postid=\"1337\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-1337 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Click image to view] 29 August 1979 Wes McNair Box 43 North Sutton, NH 03260 Dear Wes, Good to have your letter. These are good poems. I have a couple of questions. I guess I cannot quite see how they grow o\u2019s. I can see them growing over or under. I guess I can see [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2341,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[803,596,42965,35504,42971],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1337"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2341"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1337"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9109,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1337\/revisions\/9109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}