{"id":2144,"date":"2012-04-27T14:36:47","date_gmt":"2012-04-27T18:36:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=2144"},"modified":"2013-12-18T21:37:45","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T01:37:45","slug":"hall-to-mcnair-may-28-1982","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/hall-to-mcnair-may-28-1982\/","title":{"rendered":"Hall to McNair: May 28, 1982"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"Letter<\/a>\"Letter<\/a>\"Letter<\/a>\"Letter<\/a>\"Letter<\/a><\/p>\n

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

28 May 1982<\/p>\n

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

Dear Wes,<\/p>\n

Good to hear, good to have the poems.<\/p>\n

I spoke to Joey the other day, and he is obsessed<\/span> with
\nsending your stuff to the New Yorker. And the New Yorker is
\nshut down from now until Labor Day. And on Labor Day, they
\nget four thousand poems a day for two weeks, and nothing gets
\nin except the contract-folks\u2026 Therefore it is probably
\nbest not to send the poems to the New Yorker from now until
\nColumbus Day.<\/p>\n

So: with new poems, should we just hold back until
\nthen, and then start with the New Yorker at that time? I am
\ninclined to say so. With new poems. Save them up. If there
\nare eight or twelve by that time, then I would send them to
\nthe New Yorker in three groups or two. And then go on down
\nthe line. But if you would rather start with other magazines,
\nwe can do that. Poetry<\/span> is closed until the fall too \u2013 but
\nthen you do have some things coming out there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Before People\u201d really bothers me visually, the
\nway it looks on the page \u2013 and I don\u2019t think that the Fallacy
\nof Imitative Form can be invoked, even if it were not a fallacy.<\/p>\n

I like it. I think it\u2019s ready. Shall we save it?<\/p>\n

I cannot remember whether this was there before, whether
\nit bothered me or not\u2026it almost seems as if I remember it:
\n\u201c\u2026suddenly, the feet\/ are for\u2026\u201d That is, I get \u201cthe feet\u201d
\nas the object, direct object<\/span>, of \u201cdiscovering,\u201d and then when
\nI get to the next line I discover that the \u201cthat\u201d has been omitted.
\nBut if I had \u201cthat feet\u201d would I be tempted to think of an eccentric
\ndemonstrative? I like it a lot, and maybe the end is just fine.
\nI worry about this little patch\u2026 Let me know what you think.<\/p>\n

And I like \u201cMy Brother\u201d very much, but myself think that
\n\u201cheartbreakingly\u201d is a mistake. Did I see that before? Did I
\nmiss it before? Was it there before? I am bothered by its
\ntriteness, by its continual use on soap operas and sports pages,
\nby the dead metaphor\u2026 I think that some people would like it
\njust because it is corny, because that would mean that you were
\ntaking a chance, being vulnerable\u2026and today I think they are
\nwrong.<\/p>\n

2\/<\/p>\n

Joey says: if you don\u2019t want to wait, he will be happy
\nto send these to APR. (Actually, he will ask Don to send those
\nto APR, if you want.)<\/p>\n

Love from both of us, and Jane sends her love too,<\/p>\n

Don<\/p>\n

(Note: Don\u2019s markings on the poems are in bold and brackets)<\/p>\n

FEET<\/p>\n

At first the crawling
\nchild makes his whole body
\na foot.<\/p>\n

One day, dazed
\nas if by memory,
\nhe pulls himself up[,]<\/p>\n

discovering, suddenly,
\n[that] the <\/del>feet
\nare for carrying<\/p>\n

the <\/del>hands. He is so
\nhappy he cannot stop
\ntaking the hands<\/p>\n

from room to room,
\nlearning the names
\nof everything he wants.<\/p>\n

This lasts for many years
\nuntil the feet,
\nno longer fast enough,<\/p>\n

[are] forgotten,
\nsay, in the office
\nunder a desk. Above them<\/p>\n

the rest of the body,
\nwhere the child
\nhas come to live,<\/p>\n

is sending its voice
\nhundreds of miles
\nthrough a machine.<\/p>\n

Left to themselves
\nover and over,
\nthe feet sleep,<\/p>\n

awakening
\none day
\nbeyond the dead<\/p>\n

conversation of the mind
\nand the hands.
\nMute in their shoes,<\/p>\n

your shoes
\nand mine,
\nthey wait,<\/p>\n

longing only to stand
\nthe body
\nand take it<\/p>\n

into its low,
\nmysterious flight [—?]
\nalong the earth.<\/p>\n

MY BROTHER IN THE REVOLVING DOORS<\/p>\n

I see you in Chicago twenty-five years ago,
\na tall kid, heartbreakingly sure of yourself.
\nYou are just arriving from the goat farm
\nto meet your father, the god you invented
\nafter he left you in childhood.
\nIt is the sunniest day you can remember,
\nand you walk the wide streets
\nof the city by his side in the dream
\nyou have had all along of this moment,
\nexcept you are starting to see how different
\nhe looks and how he does not care
\nabout this in the same way that you do.
\nWhich is when it happens, you are taken
\ninto the doors. Just like that,
\nyou are closed off from him, walking
\nin the weightlessness of your own fear.
\nAnd when you push your door, it leads
\nto other retreating doors, and again
\nand again it takes you to the voice of him,
\nthe fat man standing outside who has nothing,
\nsuddenly, to do with your father and shouts
\nlet go!<\/span> let go!<\/span> and you cannot let go.<\/p>\n

-Wesley McNair<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\n

Read The Before People<\/span><\/a> <\/strong>(published version)<\/span><\/p>\n

See also a selection of McNair’s manuscript notes and drafts<\/span><\/a><\/span> for “The Before People.”<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n

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

[Click image to view] 28 May 1982 Wes McNair Box 43 North Sutton, NH 03260 Dear Wes, Good to hear, good to have the poems. I spoke to Joey the other day, and he is obsessed with sending your stuff to the New Yorker. And the New Yorker is shut down from now until Labor […]<\/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\/2144"}],"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=2144"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11367,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2144\/revisions\/11367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}