{"id":1339,"date":"2012-02-16T18:28:15","date_gmt":"2012-02-16T22:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=1339"},"modified":"2013-12-18T20:13:04","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T00:13:04","slug":"mcnair-to-hall-august-31-1979","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/mcnair-to-hall-august-31-1979\/","title":{"rendered":"McNair to Hall: August 31, 1979"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"McNair-to-Hall-08-31-1979\"<\/a><\/p>\n

[Click image to view]<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

31 August 1979<\/p>\n

Dear Don,<\/p>\n

Needless to say, I am pleased, delighted in fact, that Fran
\nMcCullough likes my manuscript. I will do my best to be \u201cnot too hopeful,\u201d
\nas you suggest, and I send renewed thanks for your persistence in this thing.
\nYour confidence in my poetry gives me more strength than you realize,
\nas I forge ahead through revision after revision.<\/p>\n

And of course I am glad you like the two poems\u2014disturbed, too,
\nabout what you feel does not work in each. How do the trees grow o\u2019s, you
\nask. I meant to refer in that image to the o\u2019s which telephone linesmen
\noften cut around telephone wires. Please let me know whether my explanation
\nmakes you feel more comfortable with the image. You have me worried\u2026<\/p>\n

Perhaps you are right about the verbless-ness of \u201cDriving Poem.\u201d I
\nguess I was hoping that the verbs in the which clause would carry the
\npoem well enough, in spite of the unusual syntax. About your suggestion,
\n\u201cThis is the room\u2026\u201d: Do you think the line would stress the car more
\nthan the driving which the title refers?<\/p>\n

I am working hard on two longish poems called \u201cThe Thin Man\u201d and
\n\u201cHair on Television,\u201d both of which I would like to put into the revised
\nbook. They would go into section one, along with \u201cFor My Father\u201d and
\n\u201cThe Bald Spot,\u201d so that the section would give a sort of overview of
\nthe personal and some of the public concerns of the book\u2019s narrator.
\nSection two would begin with \u201cOld Trees\u201d and would move to the other
\nregional poems of the present section one\u2014i.e., \u201cFire in Enfield,\u201d
\n\u201cLeaving the Country House\u201d and \u201cMemory of Kuhre.\u201d Each of those poems
\ncontains a certain play of present and past\u2014especially the latter\u2014and
\nso they would lead logically to section three, which would include all
\nof the poems in the present sections two and three except for the \u201cdirty
\npoems.\u201d \u201cDriving Poem\u201d would fall just before \u201cCountry People,\u201d the other
\ndrivin g [sic] poem of the collection, in section five. The sections woud be
\ncalled \u201cThe Thin Man\u201d(1); \u201cMemory of Kuhre\u201d(2); \u201cGoing Back to Fifth Grade\u201d(3);
\n\u201cThe Faces of \u2026 (4); and \u201cCountry People\u201d(5).<\/p>\n

I hope you find that my revision strengthens the book, and I hope to
\nbe able to show it to you before long. Thanks, as usual, for all of
\nyour help and advice.<\/p>\n

Love to both you & Jane,<\/p>\n

Wes<\/p>\n

P.S.: Please explain to Joey that I will be sending him
\npoems as soon as they are ready –<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\n

Read Hearing that My Father Died in a Supermarket <\/span><\/a><\/strong>(published version of “For My Father” with altered title)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Read The Bald Spot <\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span>(published version)<\/span><\/p>\n

Read Fire in Enfield <\/span><\/strong><\/a>(published version)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Read Leaving the Country House to the Landlord, Five Years Later <\/span><\/a><\/strong>(published version)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Read Memory of Kuhre <\/span><\/a><\/strong>(published version)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Read Country People <\/span><\/a><\/strong>(published version)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Read Going Back to Fifth Grade <\/span><\/a><\/strong>(published version)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Read The Faces of Americans in 1853 <\/span><\/a><\/strong>(published version)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n

\n <\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Click image to view] 31 August 1979 Dear Don, Needless to say, I am pleased, delighted in fact, that Fran McCullough likes my manuscript. I will do my best to be \u201cnot too hopeful,\u201d as you suggest, and I send renewed thanks for your persistence in this thing. Your confidence in my poetry gives me […]<\/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":[803,35504,42971,42963,293],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1339"}],"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=1339"}],"version-history":[{"count":41,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11269,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1339\/revisions\/11269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}