{"id":2117,"date":"2012-04-27T14:08:32","date_gmt":"2012-04-27T18:08:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=2117"},"modified":"2013-12-16T18:10:04","modified_gmt":"2013-12-16T22:10:04","slug":"mcnair-to-hall-march-1-1982","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/mcnair-to-hall-march-1-1982\/","title":{"rendered":"McNair to Hall: March 1, 1982"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"Letter<\/a>\"Letter<\/a>\"Letter<\/a><\/p>\n

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

March 1, 1982<\/p>\n

Dear Don,<\/p>\n

Thanks for your good, long letter.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s discouraging to learn about the poetry book club
\nthat failed. But then so much one learns about poetry and its
\nreadership is discouraging! The retreat of the trade houses
\nfrom poetry; the government\u2019s retreat from funding small presses,
\nmagazines and individual poets; the competition for places
\nin the poetry series of a few academic presses–which in
\nmany ways strengthen the walls between the poet and a
\ngeneral readership. It\u2019s terrible.<\/p>\n

Having just gotten word that another of the academic presses
\nhas turned me down for the second time, I am particularly
\ndown about all these things. Over the weekend, Princeton
\nsent me a form rejection (not the \u201cfinalist\u201d letter of last
\nyear) containing its elaborate \u201cno.\u201d Now that I\u2019m in
\nmy fourth year of submitting this manuscript of mine,
\nI have reason to be troubled. I don\u2019t see how I can make
\nthe thing much better than it is. Yet I feel the old,
\nannual cycle of rejections starting up once again. Harper
\n[Written in margin<\/em>: Solotaroff finally wrote back,
\nsaying he\u2019d \u201cbe glad to\u201d look at my book.]
\n& Row, The National Poetry Series and Pittsburgh are left.
\nI hope I\u2019m wrong about just one of them, but the hope
\nat this point is rather thin.
\n[Written in margin<\/em>: Forgot Assoc.<\/span> Writing<\/span> Programs<\/span>].<\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad to have you as a witness with Costanzo.
\nI\u2019m also glad that he wants to write about you. You have<\/p>\n

2\/<\/p>\n

written better, larger than most poets of your generation;
\nyou have worked as hard as anyone to establish respect
\nfor the fathers of modern poetry–and awareness of
\ncontemporary poets on each side of the Atlantic. Your sense
\nof the absolute importance of poetry and the vocation of the poet
\nhas changed many others, I am sure, as deeply as it
\nhas changed me. Together, your books, articles and letters
\nrepresent one of the forces keeping literature alive today.
\nI am glad Costanzo has seen the need<\/span> for a biography,
\nand I hope your relationship with him works out.<\/p>\n

You ask about The<\/span> Private<\/span> Life<\/span> Lisel Mueller
\nwrote it. I liked her work in a recent issue of Poetry<\/span>,
\nand so I bought that book, her second. Also bought, among
\nother things, The<\/span> Situation<\/span> of<\/span> Poetry<\/span>, which I liked very
\nmuch, in spite of the academic language. I am sending
\nnow for Pinsky\u2019s An<\/span> Explanation<\/span> of<\/span> America<\/span>, which I\u2019ve
\nread about long since and never gotten around to buying.<\/p>\n

And I have liked a couple of articles you have
\nwritten–the one in the current Poetry<\/span>, and, especially,
\nthe raking of Lathom (sic) in The Atlantic<\/span> (the only articles
\nby you I\u2019ve seen<\/span> recently). I continue to be interested
\nin the Hobart & William Smith book, which I\u2019d
\ngladly purchase if you have an extra copy. If you
\ndon\u2019t, I\u2019ll send for one. (I mentioned this in an earlier
\nletter and am not sure if you noticed\u2026)<\/p>\n

3\/<\/p>\n

Because I like so much the \u201clong and ambitious things\u201d
\nof Kicking the Leaves<\/span>, I look forward to your printing the
\nlong and ambitious things you are now struggling with.
\nI am sure the wait will be worth it.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, good that England went well, and
\ngood that you are both back to re-writing!<\/p>\n

Blessings,<\/p>\n

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

\n

A note from McNair about this letter:<\/strong><\/em> <\/span>Don\u2019s response in the previous letter to my notion of a book club for poetry has dampened my interest in the idea, though the opening of this letter shows my concern, which continues today, about a system that prevents a wide, general readership for poetry….\u00a0\u00a0Later, I refer to Gerald Costanzo, my one glimmer of hope for the publication of my book manuscript, since he invited me to submit my collection in the fall 1982 round at Carnegie Mellon University Press.<\/p>\n\n

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

[Click image to view] March 1, 1982 Dear Don, Thanks for your good, long letter. It\u2019s discouraging to learn about the poetry book club that failed. But then so much one learns about poetry and its readership is discouraging! The retreat of the trade houses from poetry; the government\u2019s retreat from funding small presses, magazines […]<\/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":[35294,35504,42979,42963,293],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2117"}],"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=2117"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11077,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2117\/revisions\/11077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}