{"id":1770,"date":"2012-04-13T14:27:33","date_gmt":"2012-04-13T18:27:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=1770"},"modified":"2014-01-08T17:00:41","modified_gmt":"2014-01-08T21:00:41","slug":"mcnair-to-hall-october-28-1980","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/mcnair-to-hall-october-28-1980\/","title":{"rendered":"McNair to Hall: October 28, 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, October, 28, 1980.  Milne Special Collections and Archives, University of New Hampshire.\" href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/04\/McNair-Hall19801028-001-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-10-28-1980\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/04\/McNair-Hall19801028-001-unh.jpg\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" \/><\/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;\">October 28, 1980<br \/>\nDear Don,<\/p>\n<p>Wanted you to know your reading of \u201cTo a<br \/>\nWaterfowl\u201d last night brought out something I<br \/>\nin my stupidity hadn\u2019t seen before. While the poet\/speaker<br \/>\nmocks the affluent ones who \u201ckeep\u201d him (the<br \/>\nwealthy businessmen, their wives and college-age<br \/>\nchildren), he also mocks <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">himself<\/span>, as a writer of<br \/>\nthe poetry, which \u201cshocks\u201d the wives \u2013 the mad poet<br \/>\nof feeling, naked in his motel, watching King Kong<br \/>\nSucks Mount Fugi.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s that ironic speaker \u2013 ironic accuser, I<br \/>\nshould say \u2013 that gives the poem\u2019s humor such<br \/>\ndimension, such <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">seriousness<\/span>, I now feel. I<br \/>\nhad sensed the despair in the poem before,<br \/>\nbut I never sensed all its sources so clearly.<br \/>\nIn a short space, the piece says a lot about<br \/>\nthe darker America \u2013 its wealth, classes, art<br \/>\nand artists.<\/p>\n<p>By the way and for what it\u2019s worth, I <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">still<\/span><br \/>\nlike the first version of the father (brother) poem.<\/p>\n<p>It was good to see you, even if briefly.<br \/>\nI hope you made the kick-off!<\/p>\n<p>Love,<\/p>\n<p>Wes<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Read <span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/to-a-waterfowl\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">To a Waterfowl<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>(published version)<\/span><\/p>\n<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-1770\" data-postid=\"1770\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-1770 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Click image to view] October 28, 1980 Dear Don, Wanted you to know your reading of \u201cTo a Waterfowl\u201d last night brought out something I in my stupidity hadn\u2019t seen before. While the poet\/speaker mocks the affluent ones who \u201ckeep\u201d him (the wealthy businessmen, their wives and college-age children), he also mocks himself, as a [&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":[35324,35504,42976,42963,293],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770"}],"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=1770"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11495,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1770\/revisions\/11495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}