{"id":1553,"date":"2012-02-29T12:33:45","date_gmt":"2012-02-29T16:33:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=1553"},"modified":"2013-12-18T20:38:25","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T00:38:25","slug":"mcnair-to-hall-march-25-1980","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/mcnair-to-hall-march-25-1980\/","title":{"rendered":"McNair to Hall: March 25, 1980"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"McNair-to-Hall-03-25-1980\"<\/a>\"McNair-to-Hall-03-25-1980\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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

March 25, 1980<\/p>\n

Dear Don,<\/p>\n

I want you know how much I like your book
\nString Too Short To Be Saved.<\/span> I feel close to many
\nof the book’s characters because you make<\/span> me feel
\nclose to them, but also because I myself met people
\nlike them in my experiences on farms in the Cornish
\nand Meridian area during the 1950\u2019s.<\/p>\n

I especially like the way the concluding chapter,
\n\u201cOut of the Garden\u201d manages to recapitulate earlier
\nthemes as it states its own. The last sentence of
\n\u201cOut of the Garden\u201d is breathtaking.<\/span> Still, my
\nfavorite chapter is \u201cThe Blueberry Picking.\u201d I have
\nread few things in my life so good as that reminiscence
\nis. It is so deeply metaphoric and yet so natural
\nand \u201creal\u201d in the experience it relates. And
\nwhat feeling one senses in the speaker as he looks
\nback upon the boy self in his \u201cThirst,\u201d and upon
\nthe old man who hopes the boy will \u201cremember.\u201d
\nI am just dazed by that piece.<\/p>\n

Reading String Too Short<\/span> (wonderful, wonderful title!)<\/p>\n

2\/<\/p>\n

made me return to Kicking the Leaves<\/span> to discover
\nnew meanings in the poems of that collection.
\nAll over again I love \u201cKicking the leaves\u201d, \u201cFlies\u201d,
\n\u201cThe Black Faced Sheep,\u201d \u201cThe Ox Cart Man,\u201d
\n\u201cNames of Horses.\u201d I also went back to The
\nAlligator Bride<\/span> to reread some of my favorite
\npoems in that \u2013 or any other \u2013 collection: \u201cThe Days,\u201d
\n\u201cThe Stump,\u201d \u201cThe Old Pilot,\u201d \u201cNew Hampshire,\u201d
\n\u201cThe Repeated Shapes,\u201d \u201cThe Man in the Dead Machine,\u201d
\netc. And I saw for the first time how often you
\nare in poetry what you call yourself in String
\nToo Short<\/span> \u2013 an \u201celegist.\u201d<\/p>\n

How wonderful it has been to read this book
\nand your other books through<\/span> it! Now Diane
\nhas String Too Short<\/span>, and no one can tear
\nher away from it. (She, too, visited farmer
\nrelations in New Hampshire when she was a girl.)
\nShe joins me in thanking you for the book. It
\nis wonderful to know that a person whose work
\nI like so much likes my work, too!<\/p>\n

Love,<\/p>\n

Wes<\/p>\n

P.S. I include \u201cHair on Television\u201d for Joey\u2019s collection
\nof my poems. It was rejected by APR –<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\n

Read Flies<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>(published version)<\/span><\/p>\n

Read The Black-Faced Sheep<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>(published version)<\/span><\/p>\n

Read Names of Horses<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>(published version)<\/span><\/p>\n

Read The Days<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>(published version)<\/span><\/p>\n

Read The Stump<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>(published version)<\/span><\/p>\n

Read The Old Pilot<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>(published version)<\/span><\/p>\n

Read New Hampshire<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>(published version)<\/span><\/p>\n

Read The Repeated Shapes<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>(published version)<\/span><\/p>\n

Read The Man in the Dead Machine<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>(published version)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n

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

[Click image to view] March 25, 1980 Dear Don, I want you know how much I like your book String Too Short To Be Saved. I feel close to many of the book’s characters because you make me feel close to them, but also because I myself met people like them in my experiences on […]<\/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":[35324,35504,42973,42963,293],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553"}],"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=1553"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11291,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553\/revisions\/11291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}