{"id":1411,"date":"2012-02-22T15:49:53","date_gmt":"2012-02-22T19:49:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=1411"},"modified":"2013-12-18T20:19:09","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T00:19:09","slug":"hall-to-mcnair-september-21-1979","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/hall-to-mcnair-september-21-1979\/","title":{"rendered":"Hall to McNair: September 21, 1979"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"Hall-to-McNair-09-21-1979\"<\/a>\"Hall-to-McNair-09-21-1979\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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

21 September 1979<\/p>\n

Wes McNair
\nNo. Sutton, NH<\/p>\n

Dear Wes,<\/p>\n

\u201cHair on Television\u201d is absolutely marvelous. I think it is one
\nof the truly best. There are two problems with it, one of which you
\ncannot do anything about. I don\u2019t think the poem is derivative at all,
\nbut it might well be taken so, because of Bly on the subject of hair.
\nThis poem, and you, will just have to weather that sort of thing. And
\nI\u2019m delighted that you went right on into it, without any misgivings,
\nand did it! It is just wonderful!<\/p>\n

The thing I don\u2019t like about it, which you can do something about
\nif you will agree, is the look of it on the page. I think it is visually
\nugly. I like total asymmetry sometimes, but this is not that, just has
\na tendency to get longer as it goes down the page, and this looks
\ninadvertent, it looks therefore slack or thoughtless\u2026visually only.
\nIt doesn\u2019t read that way. But the visual is as real as anything else.
\nI don\u2019t mean to say its [sic] equally important, but every single little
\nthing is important. I find the line about two and a half inches up
\nfrom the bottom kind of long, for instance, and I think of rewriting
\nit to make it: \u201cdetergent and dogfood experts helping ordinary housewives
\ndiscover\u2026\u201d I don\u2019t think you need the two \u201cexperts\u201d and this would
\nmove the line a little bit to the left\u2026 Then I would do similar
\nthings at the end, or I might tend to take one of the earlier stanzas
\nwhich is four lines, and re-break into three lines, making them longer
\nlines\u2026 I do this sort of tampering with things in order to achieve
\na visual coherence all the time \u2013 but of course I don\u2019t want to do it
\nif I think it hurts the rhythm, the line-breaks, anything like that.
\nThe whole business, as you well know, is simply to be perfect in every possible way!<\/span><\/p>\n

Anyway, I do love it dearly. It seems to me that pretty soon it<\/del> you
\nmight be ready to send Joey for<\/del> four new poems to make a batch for sending out.<\/p>\n

About that other poem. Can\u2019t you hear Bing Crosby singing the word
\n\u201cyearning\u201d? Tin Pan Alley. And the word also reminds me of the most
\nprosperous poet ever to emerge from Tin Pan Alley\u2026 I mean Rod McKuen.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not that bad.<\/p>\n

I guess my notion is that nobody should ever offer a poet $50,
\nbut instead should save up three $50 offers, or preferably four $50 offers,
\nand offer a poet $150 or $200. But I\u2019m always getting crabby about this
\nsort of thing. Yesterday Scholastic Magazine called up, to ask me if I
\nwas accepting their invitation to be on their Board\u2026 Some sort of Board
\nthat would meet annually to talk about writing in high schools\u2026 I
\npointed out to them that they had asked me two months ago, that I had
\nanswered their letter asking them some questions, but I\u2019d never heard
\nfrom them. Among other things, I wanted to know what they were paying me.
\nWell, umm\u2026umm\u2026they were not paying me anything. And I asked,
\nwith my most vicious imitation of innocence, if Scholastic were a
\nnon-profit organization? If they had stockholders? Had the stock-
\nholders ever received a dividend? And why did this idiot think that I
\nshould donate my services to create profits for rich investors? Really,
\npeople are always thinking that poets should give something away for nothing,
\nor almost nothing \u2013 and nobody ever asks the paper manufacturers to give
\naway the paper, or the ink makers to give away the ink!<\/p>\n

None of this is directed to you, who are a poet and not a
\nrich investor! But it is my suggestion that it might be better not
\nto have poetry readings than to pay $50.<\/p>\n

Best as ever,<\/p>\n

Don<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\n

Read Hair on Television<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/span> (published version)<\/span>
\n\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n

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

[Click image to view] 21 September 1979 Wes McNair No. Sutton, NH Dear Wes, \u201cHair on Television\u201d is absolutely marvelous. I think it is one of the truly best. There are two problems with it, one of which you cannot do anything about. I don\u2019t think the poem is derivative at all, but it might […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2206,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[803,596,42965,35504,42971,1],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411"}],"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\/2206"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1411"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11275,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411\/revisions\/11275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}