{"id":2056,"date":"2012-04-20T15:27:21","date_gmt":"2012-04-20T19:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=2056"},"modified":"2013-10-28T12:51:04","modified_gmt":"2013-10-28T16:51:04","slug":"hall-to-mcnair-may-18-1981","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/hall-to-mcnair-may-18-1981\/","title":{"rendered":"Hall to McNair: May 18, 1981"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"Hall-to-McNair-05-18-1981\"<\/a>\"Hall-to-McNair-05-18-1981\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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

18 May 1981<\/p>\n

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

Dear Wes,<\/p>\n

Very good to get your letter. And it came at a time
\nwhen I was on the road almost continually, so you find me
\nunusually slow in replying. Last weekend we flew south,
\nJane to Virginia to the Orrs, and me down to Clinton, South
\nCarolina, where I gave the graduation speech and got an
\nhonorary degree at a little place called Presbyterian College
\nin Clinton, a nice little place where I have read my poems a
\ncouple of times. After the graduation, a young poet named John
\nLane drove me seven hours to Charlottesville. And the next
\nmorning I tied up with Jane and the Orrs. We worked on poems
\nfor a day and a half, and then flew back here. Tuesday night
\nI saw the Celtics beat Houston, Wednesday morning answered
\nsome mail, Wednesday noon did a reading in East Andover that
\nI had agreed to do fourteen months ago, and after that I flew
\nto New York. Ihad (sic) dinner with Andrew that night, and the next
\nmorning addressed the Oxford University Press\u2019s sales force,
\nwhipping up enthusiasm for the Oxford Book of American Literary
\nAnecdotes. After that I flew back to Boston, drove out to Exeter
\nand did a reading! Then I had to hang around there for a couple
\nof days to talk with students. Just got back up here Saturday
\nnight, and I have to go off again Tuesday night, and all day
\nWednesday \u2013 but after that I get to stick around for a while,
\nthank heaven.<\/p>\n

I hope that the financial situation begins to steady-out
\nnow. Sorry to hear that Diane has had to go through an operation.
\nThat is always a lot of fun. Good for Diane with the months
\nat Haystack \u2013 which I hope will work out all right. I mean to say,
\nthat she will feel well enough to go.<\/p>\n

You say that news on the book is all bad, and of course
\nI know what you mean \u2013 but being a finalist in all these things\u2026
\nbeing a bridesmaid, in this case, is a sign that you will be a
\nbride. I know it is small comfort to hear these things \u2013 but I
\nstill think Iought (sic) to tell you the truth!<\/p>\n

I think the title is good. I think you should probably
\ncontinue to change it to make the best book possible, if you
\ncan determine what that is. When I was sending my first book
\naround, I changed it every single time, between rejections,
\nso in a sense the same book was not<\/span> rejected thirteen times,
\nwhich I always say. You are older and the book is better \u2013 but
\nstill I think that you lose nothing by dropping some poems you feel
\nless confident about. Ten years from now, if you continue to like
\nthem, you can publish them at that time. A poem is not destroyed,
\nsimply by being left out. And if you make a better book \u2013 or even<\/p>\n

2\/<\/p>\n

merely a more fashionable book \u2013 I think that the bird in
\nhand is worth cooking.<\/p>\n

I feel that I am about to be able to get into a good
\npatch of working on poems. Usually if I feel that way it
\nhappens. I need one. I have not sent out a poem for three
\nyears. The house is full of almosts. But I am not sure that
\nany of the almosts is as good as the four or five best poems
\nin Kicking the Leaves. Well, who am I to say anyway?<\/p>\n

I knew that Wally had had bad luck with his nightclub.
\nI did not know about the golf course. I\u2019m delighted to hear
\nabout the honors for Carl, who is a wonderful teacher, who
\nsometimes I think wants to convince us that he is not. You
\nhave always been around him and seeing him at work, but for
\nme the exposure has been briefer. But perfectly clear. I hope
\nCarl enjoys retirement. I think it is a little frightening
\nfor him, although he also looks forward to it. Nothing like
\nthat is ever unconflicted!<\/p>\n

Thank you for writing, and good luck to us all! I
\nmean in our work especially\u2026but why not everything else?<\/p>\n

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

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

[Click image to view] 18 May 1981 Wes McNair Box 43 N. Sutton, NH 03260 Dear Wes, Very good to get your letter. And it came at a time when I was on the road almost continually, so you find me unusually slow in replying. Last weekend we flew south, Jane to Virginia to 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":[35323,596,42965,35504,42976],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2056"}],"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=2056"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9767,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2056\/revisions\/9767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}