{"id":2084,"date":"2012-04-27T12:49:02","date_gmt":"2012-04-27T16:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=2084"},"modified":"2013-12-18T21:25:37","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T01:25:37","slug":"mcnair-to-hall-october-8-1981","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/mcnair-to-hall-october-8-1981\/","title":{"rendered":"McNair to Hall: October 8, 1981"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"McNair-to-Hall-10-08-1981\"<\/a>\"McNair-to-Hall-10-08-1981\"<\/a>\"McNair-to-Hall-10-08-1981\"<\/a>\"McNair-to-Hall-10-08-1981\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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

October 8, 1981<\/p>\n

Dear Don,<\/p>\n

Enclosed, two revised poems. Hope
\nyou like them.<\/p>\n

I had to go ahead and have my book
\nmimeo\u2019d, since the contests are calling
\nfor manuscripts now. I\u2019m therefore
\ngoing to have to assume you like
\nThe Faces<\/span> well enough–<\/p>\n

Hope all is well at the Farm–<\/p>\n

Love,<\/p>\n

Wes<\/p>\n

THE FAT PEOPLE OF THE OLD DAYS<\/p>\n

Oddly, being so large
\ngave them a sense of possibility.<\/p>\n

Women with huge upper arms
\nfelt freer.<\/p>\n

Children never stopped opening
\nthe landscapes of flesh that grew
\nin their hands.<\/p>\n

Their word for the thin ones
\nwhose long faces seemed
\npart of their necks
\nwas \u201cchinless\u201d.<\/p>\n

Barking dogs and stray cats
\nwere also called \u201cchinless\u201d.<\/p>\n

No one knows when
\nthe thin ones began
\nto seem beautiful,<\/p>\n

when the fat people first worried
\nabout weight.<\/p>\n

A woman came to fear her knuckles
\nand elbows were sinking
\ninto dimples.<\/p>\n

A man believed his chin
\nwhich shook when he talked
\nwas also speaking.<\/p>\n

For many years
\nthe fat life continued.<\/p>\n

Each day inside strange houses
\nwith wide doors
\nthe fathers rose folding themselves
\ninto their pants.<\/p>\n

Each night the families dreamed of bones
\nhung forever in fat\u2019s
\nlocked closet.<\/p>\n

–Wesley McNair<\/p>\n

A DREAM OF HERMAN
\nfor Diane<\/p>\n

I was driving the old Dodge wagon
\nagain, with Coke cans rolling
\nto the front at stop signs,
\nand you stroking the dash
\nevery so often to thank the car
\nfor not needing the spare tire
\nwe hadn\u2019t fixed. We were on a trip
\nthat felt like going to your father\u2019s camp, only
\nwe never got there and didn\u2019t care.
\nIt was a beautiful day, just enough wind
\ncoming into the back to make the kids
\nsquint with pure pleasure
\nas it scribbled their hair, and your mother
\npatted them, saying what a nice ride it was
\nin the odd, small voice
\nshe used only for your father.
\nIt was then in the rear-view mirror I saw him,
\nwearing the brown cardigan he always wore
\nand putting on the shining bell
\nof his saxophone as if just back
\nfrom an intermission. You were smiling,
\nand suddenly I saw the reason
\nwe were traveling together
\nand did not want to stop
\nwas Herman, who just sat there
\nin the cargo space, breathing the scale
\nuntil the whole family leaned back
\nin their seats, and then he lifted his sax
\nand opened one more song as wide
\nand delicate as the floating trees.<\/p>\n

–Wesley McNair<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\n

Editorial note about this<\/strong> letter:<\/strong><\/em><\/span>\u00a0Minus its fifth stanza, this version of “The Fat People of the Old Days” is the way the poem finally appears in The Town of No<\/em>. \u00a0The published version is here:\u00a0<\/span>The Fat People of the Old Days<\/span><\/a><\/span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>The above draft of “A Dream of Herman” is its final version, later published in The Faces of Americans in 1853<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n

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

[Click image to view] October 8, 1981 Dear Don, Enclosed, two revised poems. Hope you like them. I had to go ahead and have my book mimeo\u2019d, since the contests are calling for manuscripts now. I\u2019m therefore going to have to assume you like The Faces well enough– Hope all is well at the Farm– […]<\/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":[35323,35504,42976,42963,293],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2084"}],"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=2084"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11343,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2084\/revisions\/11343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}