{"id":1698,"date":"2012-03-30T14:13:09","date_gmt":"2012-03-30T18:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=1698"},"modified":"2013-12-18T20:50:22","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T00:50:22","slug":"hall-to-mcnair-september-8-1980","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/hall-to-mcnair-september-8-1980\/","title":{"rendered":"Hall to McNair: September 8, 1980"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"Hall-to-McNair-09-08-1980\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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

8 September 1980<\/p>\n

Wes McNair
\nBox 43
\nNorth Sutton, NH 03260<\/p>\n

Dear Wes,<\/p>\n

Thanks for your letters. I\u2019m really pleased that
\nyou liked Ox Cart Man. I do not think of it as a poem, though
\nit is set in irregular lines\u2026 Just a way of phrase-grouping,
\nand slowing down\u2026 They wanted to call it a poem on the jacket,
\nbut I wouldn\u2019t let them. Actually, I imagine it is a good
\nselling point not<\/span> to call it a poem! \u2026 though that was not
\nmy reason.<\/p>\n

I am thinking some more about the Slow Children \u2013
\nthough I know from your last letter that you have put it
\naside anyway. You know, you are presuming to go inside
\ntheir minds, therefore not being \u201cobjective\u201d\u2026 \u201cSmiles at
\nnothing\/ he can remember exactly.\u201d \u201c\u2026the astonished\u2026\u201d
\nI wonder if it is possible \u2013 it will be a completely different
\npoem \u2013 to make it actually objective?<\/p>\n

Probably it is best to hold poems back for a long time
\nbefore sending them to a friend. I think you do that
\nalready. Jane and I have learned to do that even from each
\nother. More or less to keep something around, looking at it
\ndaily for two months or so, before we will even show it to
\neach other. Because it has a way of changing on its own<\/span>, before
\nanybody else\u2019s words get into it.<\/p>\n

It was really such a pleasure to see those good poems
\nin Poetry<\/span>! \u2026 Oh, one more bit of sage, elderly, Polonius-like
\nadvice. For a biographical note, I think it is wise not<\/span> to
\nemphasize fellowships or academic appointments. I do not mean
\nthat the note in Poetry<\/span> is any serious gaffe or anything, honest
\nto goodness! But I think that in general, people just get mad
\nat you if they think you have had four thousand grants, which
\nwould be my general impression if I just scanned your note
\nbriefly, and they tend not to like poets who are Deans and
\nVice-Presidents \u2013 which is what being director of the American
\nStudies Program sounds a little bit like. I think that the
\nmost effective kind of biographical note is something that is
\nquite reticent, non-academic, and non-\u201csuccessful.\u201d \u201cWesley
\nMcNair lives in New Hampshire where he raises goats with eyes
\nin the middle of their foreheads.\u201d<\/p>\n

I went to the faculty meeting on Friday, not the faculty
\nmeeting \u2013 the English Department meeting. You will probably get
\nthis on Wednesday, my first day of teaching. Pray for me. Pray
\nfor my girls.<\/p>\n

Yes, Jim Wright\u2019s \u201cVenice\u201d is wonderful, and there are
\nmany terrific things in this posthumous book of his.<\/p>\n

Love to you all, as ever,<\/p>\n

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

\n

A note from McNair about this letter:<\/span><\/strong><\/em> Though Don’s and my conversation about “The Retarded Children Play Baseball” is almost over with this letter, off-and-on work with the poem was just beginning. In fact, I puzzled over how to write the poem off and on for nearly fifteen years, finally publishing the version below in my collection, Talking in the Dark<\/em>. I actually completed the poem two or three years earlier, but magazine editors would not publish it, perhaps in part because they found its term “retarded” pejorative. Even sensing this, I decided to risk my title, since it reflected in its way the condescending attitude of the children’s teachers, and besides, my poem balked at substituting politically correct terms for the title such as “mentally handicapped” or “mentally challenged.”<\/p>\n

Read The Retarded Children Play Baseball<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/span> (published version)<\/span><\/p>\n

See also a selection of McNair’s manuscript notes and drafts<\/span> <\/strong><\/a>of this poem.<\/p>\n\n

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

[Click image to view] 8 September 1980 Wes McNair Box 43 North Sutton, NH 03260 Dear Wes, Thanks for your letters. I\u2019m really pleased that you liked Ox Cart Man. I do not think of it as a poem, though it is set in irregular lines\u2026 Just a way of phrase-grouping, and slowing down\u2026 They […]<\/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":[35324,596,42965,35504,42973],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1698"}],"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=1698"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11308,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1698\/revisions\/11308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}