{"id":1723,"date":"2012-03-30T15:30:31","date_gmt":"2012-03-30T19:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=1723"},"modified":"2013-12-18T20:54:38","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T00:54:38","slug":"mcnair-to-hall-september-13-1980","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/mcnair-to-hall-september-13-1980\/","title":{"rendered":"McNair to Hall: September 13, 1980"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"McNair-to-Hall-09-13-1980\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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

September 13, 1980<\/p>\n

Dear Don,<\/p>\n

While I am delighted that Joey finds \u201cThe People Upstairs\u201d
\n\u201cabsolutely perfect\u201d (his enthusiasm for my poetry is, after
\nall, one of the main things that keeps me going), I am also glad
\nto have your more reflective judgement [sic] of the poem.<\/p>\n

I did worry about \u201cfaint scream\u201d as a clich\u00e9, and I am
\nsure you are right that the phrase should be changed. I hope you
\nfeel as I do that the new word of 3 is more resonant (in all
\nsenses) than \u201cfaint\u201d. I also hope you like the change in 1.
\nPlease feel free to let me know if otherwise.<\/p>\n

I have decided to go with the rest of it. \u201cWeightless\u201d
\n[Written in margin<\/em>: It’s also the enjambment
\nwhich the word makes possible, in the preceding line that
\nI’d have trouble replacing -]
\nand \u201cearshot\u201d seem<\/span> to me irreplaceable, and if 2 doesn\u2019t say
\nenough, I can\u2019t see how to fix it. At this point, it does feel
\nright to me. Or right enough that I am ready, with Valery, to
\nabandon it.<\/p>\n

I always worry about these poems which depend so much on
\nthe space around themselves to complete their utterance\u2026That is,
\nI worry that the space does more for me than it might for the
\nreader. In this poem, visual space should become aural, and
\nboth<\/span> kinds of space should contribute to the \u201cdistance\u201d between
\nupstairs and downstairs. I have tried for similar effects with
\nthe page around the poem in \u201cMemory of Kuhre\u201d and \u201cElinore Quelch\u201d,
\nand while I am reasonably sure the first of the two works, I
\ndo not know about the Quelch poem. Nobody<\/span> seems to like that one.<\/p>\n

I hope you like this piece, in any event. If you do, please
\ngive it to Joey.<\/p>\n

One more thing: Would you please let me know which five
\npoems you think I should send to Houghton Mifflin? I should be
\nwriting them soon.<\/p>\n

Thanks!<\/p>\n

Love,<\/p>\n

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

\n

A note from McNair about this poem:<\/strong><\/em><\/span>\u00a0Eventually, Don’s “reflective judgment” about “The People Upstairs” as well as my own led to pulling the piece from my book-length manuscript of poems; I also dropped the verse about Elinore Quelch (See Elinore Quelch<\/span><\/a>). However, I “raided” parts of “The People Upstairs” for my later poem “The Longing of the Feet,” whose published version is available in the footnote of the letter from June 3, 1982<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

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

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

[Click image to view] September 13, 1980 Dear Don, While I am delighted that Joey finds \u201cThe People Upstairs\u201d \u201cabsolutely perfect\u201d (his enthusiasm for my poetry is, after all, one of the main things that keeps me going), I am also glad to have your more reflective judgement [sic] of the poem. I did worry […]<\/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\/1723"}],"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=1723"}],"version-history":[{"count":47,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11312,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1723\/revisions\/11312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}