{"id":2199,"date":"2012-04-30T11:58:56","date_gmt":"2012-04-30T15:58:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=2199"},"modified":"2013-12-16T17:34:24","modified_gmt":"2013-12-16T21:34:24","slug":"hall-to-mcnair-november-3-1982","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/hall-to-mcnair-november-3-1982\/","title":{"rendered":"Hall to McNair: November 3, 1982"},"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, November 3, 1982, Colby College Special Collections\" href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/04\/Hall-McNair-19821103-001-colby.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-2078 alignleft\" style=\"border: 1px solid gray; background: white;\" alt=\"Letter from Hall to McNair, November 3, 1982, Colby College Special Collections\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/04\/Hall-McNair-19821103-001-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;\">3 November 1982<\/p>\n<p>Wes McNair<br \/>\nBox 43<br \/>\nNorth Sutton, NH 03260<\/p>\n<p>Dear Wes,<\/p>\n<p>I think this is extremely beautiful, possibly even one<br \/>\nof your very best \u2013 and I think it has one horrible word in it.<br \/>\nA gross and palpable dead metaphor in the word \u201ccradling.\u201d (It<br \/>\nis the same dead metaphor which practically ruins Roethke\u2019s<br \/>\nMeadow Mouse\u2026but not quite.) (You are alive: you can change<br \/>\nit!) There are some people who actually say that the bandito cradled<br \/>\nthe Thompson sub-machine gun \u2013 and then claim that they are not<br \/>\ncomparing the sub-machine gun to a baby!<\/p>\n<p>It is another one like \u201ccupping\u201d and \u201cdarting\u201d which is<br \/>\nvery commonly used, but is a dead metaphor. There is a man<br \/>\nwho sends poems to the Country Journal who tries to tell me<br \/>\nthat the word \u201cwake,\u201d as in \u201cin the wake of the scythe,\u201d has<br \/>\nabsolutely nothing to do with water, because after all his<br \/>\nWebster\u2019s and his Roget tell him that it means \u201caftermath\u201d and<br \/>\nthings like that\u2026<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, could you find something else for that? And there<br \/>\nis one other dead metaphor, which is \u201cframed,\u201d but it is not<br \/>\nsuch a sore thumb as \u201ccradling.\u201d I would infinitely prefer<br \/>\nthat there were something besides an oil painting or a window<br \/>\nin that line, because \u201cframed\u201d in the sense of \u201coutlined\u201d or<br \/>\n\u201csurrounded\u201d is very very dead\u2026 But it is not so bad as<br \/>\ncradling and I can\u2019t pretend it is.<\/p>\n<p>The only other thing I have any doubt about at all is the<br \/>\nrhythm in \u201cjust look down at the rug\/ on rugs to wear\u2026\u201d (sic: &#8220;where&#8221;) A whole<br \/>\nlot of monosyllables without much importance to any of them,<br \/>\nand it makes for a dead patch in the rhythm, and it is especially<br \/>\nin the first line there. I wonder if it might be possible to<br \/>\ntake out at least one of the little words.<\/p>\n<p>But what I started out with is the real thing. This is<br \/>\nabsolutely wonderful.<\/p>\n<p>Love as ever,<\/p>\n<p>Don<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-2199\" data-postid=\"2199\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-2199 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Click image to view] 3 November 1982 Wes McNair Box 43 North Sutton, NH 03260 Dear Wes, I think this is extremely beautiful, possibly even one of your very best \u2013 and I think it has one horrible word in it. A gross and palpable dead metaphor in the word \u201ccradling.\u201d (It is the same [&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":[35294,596,42965,35504,42979],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2199"}],"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=2199"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10167,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2199\/revisions\/10167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}