{"id":1567,"date":"2012-02-29T13:00:59","date_gmt":"2012-02-29T17:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=1567"},"modified":"2013-12-13T13:35:44","modified_gmt":"2013-12-13T17:35:44","slug":"mcnair-to-hall-april-8-1980","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/mcnair-to-hall-april-8-1980\/","title":{"rendered":"McNair to Hall: April 8, 1980"},"content":{"rendered":"<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"vertical-align: top; background: white; float: left;\"><a class=\"shutterset\" title=\"Letter from McNair to Hall, April 8, 1980, Page 1.  Milne Special Collections and Archives, University of New Hampshire.\" href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/01\/McNair-Hall-19800408-001-unh.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-2078 alignleft\" style=\"border: 1px solid gray; background: white;\" alt=\"McNair-to-Hall-04-08-1980\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/01\/McNair-Hall-19800408-001-unh.jpg\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" \/><\/a><a class=\"shutterset\" title=\"Letter from McNair to Hall, April 8, 1980, Page 2.  Milne Special Collections and Archives, University of New Hampshire.\" href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/01\/McNair-Hall-19800408-002-unh.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-2078 alignleft\" style=\"border: 0px none; background: white; display: none;\" alt=\"McNair-to-Hall-04-08-1980\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/01\/McNair-Hall-19800408-002-unh.jpg\" \/><\/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;\">April 8, 1980<\/p>\n<p>Dear Don,<\/p>\n<p>You asked in your recent note whether I<br \/>\nhad sent poems to Houghton Mifflin. The answer<br \/>\nis <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">yes<\/span>. I mailed five poems to the readers<br \/>\nfor the \u201cNew Poetry Series,\u201d to no avail.<br \/>\nI did not mention your name (as you earlier<br \/>\nsaid I might) because that seemed inappropriate<br \/>\nin an open competition: Perhaps I chose the<br \/>\nwrong five poems\u2026I can always<br \/>\nrationalize that way.<\/p>\n<p>More bad news yesterday. I got my rejection<br \/>\nfrom the National Poetry Series. At the<br \/>\nbottom of their form letter was a note<br \/>\n(unsigned) informing me that I had sent<br \/>\n\u201cgood work.\u201d I don\u2019t feel much heartened<br \/>\nby that, but I suppose it\u2019s better than nothing.<\/p>\n<p>I do appreciate your continuing faith<br \/>\nin the publish-ability of the book. You<br \/>\nlift my spirits every time I\u2019m down about<\/p>\n<p>2\/<\/p>\n<p>its fate! In spite of your wise<br \/>\ninjunction to \u201cexpect nothing,\u201d I am now<br \/>\nhoping for a good word from the Pitt Poetry<br \/>\nSeries. You will remember that Ed Ochester<br \/>\nasked me to resubmit my manuscript<br \/>\nthere this year, having turned it down last<br \/>\nyear. I should hear by June.<\/p>\n<p>I am enormously pleased that you like<br \/>\n\u201cThe Fat Enter Heaven\u201d and that Jane<br \/>\nlikes it. I have been working on a longer<br \/>\n\u201cfat poem\u201d for some time now, and on<br \/>\nother poems, but I am so slow I almost<br \/>\nlose patience with myself.<\/p>\n<p>Next week I go to Detroit to lecture<br \/>\non Winslow Homer at the joint meeting of the<br \/>\nPopular Culture and American Culture Associations.<br \/>\nThat will perhaps provide the brief respite I<br \/>\nneed to jar some poems loose!<\/p>\n<p>Love to you and Jane,<\/p>\n<p>Wes<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><em><strong>A note from McNair about this letter:<\/strong><\/em><\/span> The \u201clonger fat poem\u201d I&#8217;m working on when I write this letter is \u201cThe Fat People of the Old Days.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-1567\" data-postid=\"1567\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-1567 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Click image to view] April 8, 1980 Dear Don, You asked in your recent note whether I had sent poems to Houghton Mifflin. The answer is yes. I mailed five poems to the readers for the \u201cNew Poetry Series,\u201d to no avail. I did not mention your name (as you earlier said I might) because [&hellip;]<\/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\/1567"}],"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=1567"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10943,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1567\/revisions\/10943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}