{"id":2110,"date":"2012-04-27T13:44:39","date_gmt":"2012-04-27T17:44:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=2110"},"modified":"2013-12-16T17:27:40","modified_gmt":"2013-12-16T21:27:40","slug":"hall-to-mcnair-december-1-1981","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/hall-to-mcnair-december-1-1981\/","title":{"rendered":"Hall to McNair: December 1, 1981"},"content":{"rendered":"<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"vertical-align: top; background: white; float: left;\"><a class=\"shutterset\" title=\"Letter from Hall to McNair, December 1, 1981.  Colby College Special Collections.\" href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/04\/Hall-McNair-19811201-001-colby.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-2078 alignleft\" style=\"border: 1px solid gray; background: white;\" alt=\"Hall-to-McNair-12-01-1981\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/04\/Hall-McNair-19811201-001-colby.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;\">1 December 1981<\/p>\n<p>Wes McNair<br \/>\nNorth Sutton, NH 03260<\/p>\n<p>Dear Wes,<\/p>\n<p>I love the book in its gross state, and think it is a<br \/>\ngreat improvement, far more improvement than it ought to be.<br \/>\nI love the feel of it, and really think it makes a quantum<br \/>\nleap. I also like the three new poems, and they are already<br \/>\ngone.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, it was lovely to see you two \u2013 and Lily and Wolf also.<br \/>\nAnd it would be good to see you more often. We are very laggard<br \/>\nthis way, both of us inclined to go to bed at <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">about<\/span> the time we<br \/>\nwould be having people over. But when we do see people \u2013 I mean<br \/>\na <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">few<\/span> people! \u2013 we love it.<\/p>\n<p>You are absolutely right about the energy and the vulgarity<br \/>\nof country-western, and this is something wonderful in your work,<br \/>\nand generally it is the best part of your work. Yes, and do not<br \/>\nforget \u201cDrop kick me, Jesus, through the goal-posts of life\/ ,<br \/>\nend over end, neither to the left nor the right.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Iowa was a lot of fun. I saw quite a bit of Don Justice,<br \/>\nwhom I admire. Also there was Hank Coulette, and Larry Levis<br \/>\nand Marcia Southwick\u2026 And the Justices had a lunch<br \/>\nparty for me, and two other people had dinner parties for me,<br \/>\nand somebody else had a big party after the reading. I felt<br \/>\nfeted\u2026and I feel even better to be home.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately my piece about Kevin McHale seems to be<br \/>\ndoomed. Inside Sports is folding. I feel about fifty-two per<br \/>\ncent disappointed, because I had looked forward to writing it;<br \/>\nand forty-eight percent relieved, because I can do something<br \/>\nelse instead.<\/p>\n<p>Best as ever,<\/p>\n<p>Don<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><em><strong>A note from McNair about this letter:<\/strong><\/em><\/span> &#8220;Wolf and Lily&#8221; were local restaurateurs and mutual friends who swelled our dinner company in North Sutton to six&#8230;.The three poems referred to in this letter are &#8220;A Dream of Herman,&#8221; &#8220;Mina Bell&#8217;s Cows,&#8221; and &#8220;Small Towns are Passing.&#8221; So Section IV concludes with one more generous letter from Don, thanking me for a visit; complimenting me about the poetry collection I will once more send out to editors; and \u00a0submitting new McNair poems in the guise of Joseph Amaryllis. Less noticeable, but also helpful, is his last paragraph, with its model of cheerfulness in the face of writerly disappointment.<\/p>\n<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-2110\" data-postid=\"2110\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-2110 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Click image to view] 1 December 1981 Wes McNair North Sutton, NH 03260 Dear Wes, I love the book in its gross state, and think it is a great improvement, far more improvement than it ought to be. I love the feel of it, and really think it makes a quantum leap. I also like [&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":[35323,596,42965,35504,42976],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2110"}],"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=2110"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11062,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2110\/revisions\/11062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}