{"id":2098,"date":"2012-04-27T13:22:25","date_gmt":"2012-04-27T17:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=2098"},"modified":"2014-01-28T15:59:40","modified_gmt":"2014-01-28T19:59:40","slug":"hall-to-mcnair-november-2-1981","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/hall-to-mcnair-november-2-1981\/","title":{"rendered":"Hall to McNair: November 2, 1981"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"Hall-to-McNair-11-02-1981\"<\/a>\"Hall-to-McNair-11-02-1981\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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

2 November 1981<\/p>\n

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

Dear Wes,<\/p>\n

Jane is doing just fine. Of course after the relief \u2013
\neven the high<\/span> of the death of someone whom you have seen to
\nsuffer the torture of the absolute damned\u2026then there is time
\nfor the grief to begin. But she shows every sign of taking it
\nall well. What is so important: she knows that she did the right
\nthings. Oh, maybe some day there will come the day when they make
\na computer which relieves us of being good<\/span>. But I don\u2019t look forward
\nto the day.<\/p>\n

Jane got an NEA. The relief and pleasure for her, the
\nindependent affirmation of her worth\u2026you know something about
\nwhat that feels like! Very good for her.<\/p>\n

I know Gerald Costanzo a little bit. He is a good man.
\nI\u2019m delighted that he liked the book, and that
\nhe wants to publish it\u2026 As you well know, nothing is firm<\/span> until
\nyou have the book in your hand, or see ten copies of it at once!
\nStill, I\u2019m absolutely delighted.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think that one should ever save poems for a new
\nbook. One should at any moment present the strongest possible
\nbook. On the other hand, sometimes it is wise to leave poems out
\nof a book, not in order to save them, but in order to give a shape
\nto the book. I don\u2019t know which you are doing, or whether you are
\ndoing something else\u2026 I wondered if I might be able to help<\/span> by
\nsupplying an external opinion. I didn\u2019t mean to leave you \u201cmost
\nconcerned\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

You know, even after a book is taken, you are usually allowed
\nto revise it, to add to it, to subtract from it, to revise the poems
\nin the manuscript. Jane\u2019s From Room to Room<\/span> hardly resembled,
\nwhen it was printed, the manuscript that was accepted.<\/p>\n

Your reasons for leaving out these eight poems\u2026 A lot
\nof them make sense. But sense isn\u2019t always what matters. That is,
\nI think you may be worrying too much about \u201caffirmative\u201d and \u201cnegative.\u201d
\nThe quality and power of the poems is what matters, I think I might
\nargue. Do you have copies of these eight? Obviously I know them all \u2013
\nbut I don\u2019t have copies of them handy. Could you make xeroxes of them
\nover at the English Dept., and send them to me, and let me play
\nwith the manuscript as a whole, and make a (non-dogmatic) suggestion?<\/p>\n

2\/<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think enough people pay attention to the book, [as shape,]
\nbut pay attention just to making an anthology of poems; it is
\npossible that you pay too much<\/span> attention to the book, and not
\nenough to the anthology of poems. But I don\u2019t mean to tell you
\nso, in this letter \u2013 just to think that I might think about it,
\nand might wind up saying so\u2026and if I did, that would be no
\ndisaster, and if you disagreed with me, that would be no disaster
\neither\u2026<\/p>\n

I think it is important \u2013 and I\u2019m sure you agree \u2013 to
\nput your best possible foot forward. Spend every penny you have.
\nSave nothing. In your first book.<\/p>\n

I did not get a bunch of poems recently, except for the
\nbook itself\u2026maybe you sent them more recently than you think \u2013
\nbut I got the letter here, and have not yet received the revisions
\nof a dream of Herman or others.<\/p>\n

Joey is about to submit some McNair poems to Donald Hall
\nfor a special issue of Ploughshares<\/span>. Probably the new revisions
\nare in order, in such a case.<\/p>\n

Love as ever,<\/p>\n

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

\n

A note from McNair about this letter:<\/strong><\/em><\/span> The poems Joey submitted to Ploughshares<\/em> for Don, as a guest editor of the magazine (which was a matter of Don submitting them to himself) were: “Old Trees,” “The Fat People of the Old Days,” and “Calling Harold.”<\/p>\n\n

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

[Click image to view] 2 November 1981 Wes McNair North Sutton, NH 03260 Dear Wes, Jane is doing just fine. Of course after the relief \u2013 even the high of the death of someone whom you have seen to suffer the torture of the absolute damned\u2026then there is time for the grief to begin. But […]<\/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\/2098"}],"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=2098"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11649,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2098\/revisions\/11649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}