{"id":2130,"date":"2012-04-27T14:25:09","date_gmt":"2012-04-27T18:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=2130"},"modified":"2013-12-18T21:34:08","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T01:34:08","slug":"hall-to-mcnair-april-2-1982","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/hall-to-mcnair-april-2-1982\/","title":{"rendered":"Hall to McNair: April 2, 1982"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"Letter<\/a><\/p>\n

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

2 April 1982
\nWes McNair
\nBox 43
\nNorth Sutton, NH 03260<\/p>\n

Dear Wes,<\/p>\n

These seem to me further along than the Father-Poem, but
\nI think that maybe they would profit by being kept around for
\na while longer. I am taking so long, I am being so \u201cpatient\u201d
\n(if that is really the name of it) that maybe I urge it too much
\non others. When I wait, I am glad that I have waited\u2026 It is
\nnot only that you change a word\u2026 Sometimes you see something
\nabout a poem that is entirely new \u2013 like a way for it to mean or
\ngo that you never even saw before. And I am getting up to two
\nhundred drafts these days! Maybe that\u2019s a bit ridiculous\u2026<\/p>\n

I like both of these. \u201cFeet\u201d is a wonderful idea. I have
\ntwo kinds of objections, one of which is just little things about
\nsingle words, pacings, connections\u2026 Then there is the possible
\narea of implications not exploited enough, or not clear enough\u2026<\/p>\n

You will see that I am messing with things on the first page\u2026
\nI feel that it is ambiguous when we do not have \u201cthat\u201d in the
\nthird stanza\u2026 I find \u201care\u201d a boring word, and wonder if some-
\nthing like \u201clay\u201d or a more interesting verb might be possible.<\/p>\n

Then I find \u201cto stand\/ the body\/ can take it\u2026\u201d The
\ntransitive \u201cstand\u201d slows me down. Maybe it should\u2026 I\u2019m not
\nsure it should.<\/p>\n

But then I am bothered very much by the metaphor of \u201cflight.\u201d
\nProbably it is \u201cthe whole point,\u201d as we say. But the feet have been
\nvery much attached to the earth, and that has been the characteristic
\nof them, the lowliness of them, the footageness of them, as opposed
\nto voices that go hundreds of miles through machines\u2026 And then
\nthey take it in its \u201clow\/mysterious flight\u2026\u201d and I really don\u2019t
\nknow what they\u2019re doing or why it is the feet that would do that.
\nAlthough we can use the word \u201cflight\u201d meaning fast movement, it
\nsurely means up in the air also, whatever we want<\/span>. This seems
\na low orbit\u2026but why? How? And isn\u2019t \u201cmaybe\u201d \u201cmysterious\u201d a
\ncop-out?<\/p>\n

Then with My Brother. I don\u2019t understand the concept of
\n\u201ctaken\/ into the doors.\u201d Inside doors? Into the room which is
\nbehind the doors? Banging against the doors, breaking your nose?
\nI think that it ends very well. I think that it is almost all here.
\nThat image is disturbing to me though, because of its physical
\nconfusion. Physical confusions perhaps in both poems.<\/p>\n

Love as ever,
\nDon<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\n

Editorial note about this letter:<\/span><\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/span><\/em>Though McNair’s first drafts of “The Longing of the Feet” and “My Brother in the Revolving Doors” as sent on this date have been lost, the changes he made to those poems following Hall’s critique were small; in fact, his second drafts of these poems are nearly the same as the first. To find them and continue with the discussion, skip the next notes detailing McNair’s new acceptance from The Atlantic Monthly,<\/em> and go to the series of three letters starting on May 27<\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n\n

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

[Click image to view] 2 April 1982 Wes McNair Box 43 North Sutton, NH 03260 Dear Wes, These seem to me further along than the Father-Poem, but I think that maybe they would profit by being kept around for a while longer. I am taking so long, I am being so \u201cpatient\u201d (if that is […]<\/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\/2130"}],"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=2130"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11359,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2130\/revisions\/11359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}