{"id":2126,"date":"2012-04-27T14:22:22","date_gmt":"2012-04-27T18:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=2126"},"modified":"2013-12-18T21:32:58","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T01:32:58","slug":"hall-to-mcnair-march-25-1982","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/hall-to-mcnair-march-25-1982\/","title":{"rendered":"Hall to McNair: March 25, 1982"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"Letter<\/a><\/p>\n

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

25 March 1982<\/p>\n

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

Dear Wes,<\/p>\n

Well, you just cannot lose at Poetry<\/span>. Only one this time,
\nbut you cannot knock it.<\/p>\n

And on the other hand, I am not happy with the father poem.
\nI think the end is just beautiful, and you have to start nearer
\nit probably. But there are all sorts of strange awkwardnesses
\nand inadequacies I think. You say \u201chad you gone\/ over and over,\u201d
\nso that it is ambiguous, as if the act of leaving took place over
\nand over again, whereas I believe you mean the asking about it\u2026
\nAnd then when you say \u201csome world beyond my reach\u201d you have two
\nclich\u00e9s together, the world, and the physical reading business\u2026
\ntwo dead metaphors, the commentary of \u201cthe worst\/ of it\u2026\u201d and
\nthen other things, all along in there in the middle, and I don\u2019t
\nthink that your language is much good, it seems slack\u2026 More
\nthinking! More feeling\u2026more setting aside. Sorry about that.
\nBut I really feel strongly about it, and I feel strongly that
\nyou will feel it too. You are very rarely ever slack \u2013 so I
\nsuspect that this poem is just emotionally a tough one.<\/p>\n

Best as ever,<\/p>\n

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

\n

Editorial note about this letter:<\/span> <\/strong><\/em> Below is the poem Don questions in his letter, leading me to put it aside. Still, I knew by the depth of feeling I had reached in “To My Father” that it would be an important poem for me if I could ever sort out the material it contained. Though I never completed the poem, “To My Father” turned out to be crucial, its themes and images resurfacing years later in my long narrative, “My Brother Running,” and in poems I wrote afterward, particularly “Weeds.”<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

To My Father<\/p>\n

Your were so tall your loved face
\nmoved across ceilings. Your voice,
\na cigarette’s light, floated
\nhigh in my bedroom’s dark. This is why,
\nafter I asked mother had you gone
\nover and over, it seemed right
\nto think of you floating
\nand moving in some world beyond
\nmy reach, why when you came back
\ntwenty years later, I was so down.
\nYou were not supposed to be
\nwho you were: shorter than me,
\nslightly drunk and, the worst
\nof it, unable to see the difference
\nbetween living in the high world
\nI had imagined, and just
\nsaying you did. And yet tonight,
\nhaving dealt with all the expectations
\nof the world and my own sons,
\nI don’t quite think of you
\nas a failed father, but more
\nlike me, lost in a patch of weeds
\nand doing the best you could with it.
\nSo I write this poem partly for me,
\nPartly just in case where you are now
\nthey read, to say that in the end
\nof your booze-ridden life,
\nwhen your eyesight and second family
\ngave out at the same time
\nand, having no story left
\nin your crazy head, you lay down
\non your back yard to plant seeds
\nyou could hardly see, I wish
\nI had stood in that darkness,
\nas you once stood for me,
\nto tell you that I saw the garden
\nyou meant, the bright flowers blooming
\neverywhere, no matter if weeds should grow,
\nno matter if, by some accident of timing,
\nyou should not be there to tend it.<\/p>\n\n

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

[Click image to view] 25 March 1982 Wes McNair Box 43 North Sutton, NH 03260 Dear Wes, Well, you just cannot lose at Poetry. Only one this time, but you cannot knock it. And on the other hand, I am not happy with the father poem. I think the end is just beautiful, and you […]<\/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":[35294,596,42965,35504,42979],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2126"}],"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=2126"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11357,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2126\/revisions\/11357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}