{"id":1598,"date":"2012-03-05T12:44:54","date_gmt":"2012-03-05T16:44:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=1598"},"modified":"2013-12-18T20:41:05","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T00:41:05","slug":"mcnair-to-hall-april-26-1980","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/mcnair-to-hall-april-26-1980\/","title":{"rendered":"McNair to Hall: April 26, 1980"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"McNair-to-Hall-04-26-1980\"<\/a>\"McNair-to-Hall-04-26-1980\"<\/a>\"McNair-to-Hall-04-26-1980\"<\/a>\"McNair-to-Hall-04-26-1980\"<\/a>\"McNair-to-Hall-04-26-1980\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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

April 26, 1980<\/p>\n

Dear Don,<\/p>\n

Finally I find the time to write you about the poems
\nyou sent!<\/p>\n

I do like them — all of them — very much. I believe
\nthat \u201c6 October 1980\u201d is one of the most moving poems
\nyou ever wrote, so complicated and profound are the
\nfeelings of sonship which it expresses. It is a
\nwonderful thing. \u201cEpithalamion\u201d is also a wonderful
\npoem. The \u201cpositioning\u201d of each of your reluctant
\ncharacters is perfect — Emily in the cellar \u201cvanishing
\nagainst a pillar\u201d (just the right word, that
\n\u201cagainst\u201d!) and Walt in the belltower with<\/span>
\nthe muscular young sexton. I love that piece. And
\nI love \u201cSonnet.\u201d The last stanza of that poem is
\njust delicious in its sounds and imagery. I
\nbelieve that \u201cMarbles,\u201d \u201cA Novel in Two Volumes,\u201d
\nand \u201cScenic View\u201d are also good, strong poems.<\/p>\n

I have suggestions about how certain aspects
\nof the other poems might be revised – suggestions
\nwhich I hope<\/span> will be helpful. One of my favorite
\npoems in its potential^\u201dPoultry\u201d is still, I think, not
\nquite finished. I very much like the way seasons
\nturn throughout the poem, the way the life and death
\nof poultry suggests to both boy participant and
\nadult narrator the transcience [sic] of human life. What
\nI feel the poem needs is a fuller reference to Luther\u2026
\nor perhaps references to people other than Luther, who<\/p>\n

2\/<\/p>\n

were alive once to eat the meals the poultry made, and who
\nare now dead. Without more allusions to Luther (at the
\ntable, \u201cleading in the singing of \u201chymns\u201d, your word noted on
\npage 4? with others?) the poem\u2019s conclusion seems to me
\narbitrary. I do find the descriptions of chicks, chickens
\nand roosters most<\/span> convincing, however\u2026I love the
\nrooster section. One other question: In the 4th
\nstanza, should the phrase \u201cwhen the egg making frenzy\u201d
\nbe changed to a phrase which more closely approximates
\nthe other indented phrases of the section, which seem to
\nconvey the continuous action of the hens in time
\n(moving toward \u201cconsumed\u201d)?<\/p>\n

About \u201cThe Glass.\u201d If I have your intentions right:
\nit seems to me the poem should be presented in 3 stanzas.
\nI think the first stanza should speak of the world of
\n\u201cpermanence\u201d; the second stanza, about the speaker\u2019s
\n\u201cheroic\u201d movement through time, which leads to reading
\nthe news about Emily Farr\u2019s death; the third stanza,
\nabout the glass. I especially<\/span> like the image of the \u201cold
\nman carrying buckets\/among pale ferns under
\nwavering birches,\u201d and I do believe this poem could
\nbe quite wonderful, even though it is not (or so I
\nthink) fully realized at this point.<\/p>\n

\u201cFires for Tending.\u201d I feel the poem should begin<\/span><\/p>\n

3\/<\/p>\n

with the reading of the obituaries. The prologue of the first
\nthree lines gives so strong an emphasis to the comfortable
\ndomestic rituals and environment of the narrator\u2019s
\npresent that the movement into the past does not
\nachieve the importance that I believe it ought to have
\nin the poem. I feel that if the first 3 lines were cast
\nand the ordering were changed slightly, the narrator would
\nread his news, recollect the experience of the past,
\nand return to the surroundings of his present life,
\nfeeling his old attachment to them, along with an
\nunsettling de<\/span>tachment. (This tension between attachment
\nand detachment comes through wonderfully well, I think,
\nin the last 2 lines.) Another thing about the conclusion:
\nI feel that the story should not be characterized as
\n\u201cordinary,\u201d since that characterization stills the reverberations
\nthat the memory might have. Incidentally, I wonder if
\nthe full-out statement <\/del>declaration of the last stanza – the \u201cI
\nwill preserve\u201d should be replaced with a phrasing
\nwhich stresses the <\/del>struggle against the fact of
\nforgetting\u2026or against \u201cthe forgetful kingdom of death,\u201d
\nas J.C. Ransom called it. I don\u2019t mean to suggest
\nthat the \u201cstruggle\u201d should be expressed in any dramatic way –
\nonly that it might be hinted<\/span> at\u2026 I do hope I
\nhave not written here about a poem which I might
\nwrite, rather than about the poem which this one might
\nbecome.<\/p>\n

4\/<\/p>\n

\u201cWhip Poor Will.\u201d I feel that the last line of the poem
\nshould refer somehow to the whip-poor-will\u2019s \u201cvoice-lessness\u201d
\nduring the day. Stilling the bird\u2019s song would be a bitter
\nway, I think, to bring the narrator and reader back to the
\n\u201creal\u201d world of the last stanza. Also, I like your
\npenned-in lines \u201cbut the real\/bird lifts away\u201d
\nbetter than the 1st and 2nd lines that appear in
\nthe typed version of the last stanza. I wonder, too,
\nif the whip-poor-will\u2019s flight into \u201cfar dark fields\u201d
\nin the stanza one<\/span> might be more strongly linked with
\nthe bird\u2019s flight into the narrator\u2019s dream, which is
\nsuggested in stanza two. The possible link between the
\ntwo seems to be cut off by the rooster\u2019s crowing and
\nby the light of the second stanza. I think that the
\n\u201ccock-crow\u201d should be cut out, and that the darkness
\nof stanza one should extend into stanza 2, at least
\nuntil the reader is able to catch the connection
\nbetween the flight into dark fields and the flight
\ninto the mind. The light, then, might foreshadow
\nthe awakening to \u201creality\u201d which eventually happens –
\neven as it (the light) suggests Wesley Wells,
\nwho began his day at dawn.<\/p>\n

If I have misread your intentions anywhere
\nwith my suggestions <\/del>recommendations, I am sorry. I certainly want
\nto be a help to you and not a hindrance. I feel this<\/p>\n

5\/<\/p>\n

is a very strong group of poems, and I thank you
\nvery much for letting me see them.<\/p>\n

But no more ado. I must get this into
\nthe mail!<\/p>\n

With love,<\/p>\n

Wes
\n[McNair]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\n

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

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

Read Whip Poor Will<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>(published version)<\/span><\/p>\n\n

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

[Click image to view] April 26, 1980 Dear Don, Finally I find the time to write you about the poems you sent! I do like them — all of them — very much. I believe that \u201c6 October 1980\u201d is one of the most moving poems you ever wrote, so complicated and profound are the […]<\/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\/1598"}],"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=1598"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11295,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1598\/revisions\/11295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}