{"id":2250,"date":"2012-04-27T13:51:57","date_gmt":"2012-04-27T17:51:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=2250"},"modified":"2014-02-05T11:13:14","modified_gmt":"2014-02-05T15:13:14","slug":"section-v","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/section-v\/","title":{"rendered":"<span style='color: #800000'>V. The Writing Rhythm (2\/8\/1982 &#8211; 11\/15\/1982)<\/span>"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_11581\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11581\" style=\"width: 175px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/04\/atlantic-cover-ape.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11581 \" style=\"border: 1px solid black; margin-left: 2px; margin-right: 2px;\" title=\"The Atlantic, February 1983\" alt=\"atlantic-cover-ape\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/04\/atlantic-cover-ape-219x300.jpg\" width=\"175\" height=\"241\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11581\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>&#8220;Mina Bell&#8217;s Cows&#8221; is published in The Atlantic, 1983.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_11582\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11582\" style=\"width: 203px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/04\/poetry-covers.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11582 \" style=\"border: 1px solid black; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px;\" title=\"Poetry Magazine\" alt=\"poetry-covers\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/04\/poetry-covers-246x300.jpg\" width=\"203\" height=\"245\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11582\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Poetry Magazine<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>My year-long sabbatical leave from Colby Sawyer has been crucial to continuing the momentum started by the NEA fellowship, providing a range of poems in progress together with poems for Joey\u2019s \u201cfall campaign,\u201d as Don has begun to call the process of submitting to magazines. \u201cYou are really building up a nice group for Joey,\u201d he writes on September 30. On sabbatical in a period when my two oldest sons have left the nest, I have settled into the luxury of a daily writing schedule, teaching classes at neighboring colleges at night to make ends meet. Going into isolation with my poetry (naming the creation of poems a &#8220;vocation&#8221; twice in the early letters of this section), I write Don mostly when I am sending work for his critical assessments. I have caught the rhythm of the writing life at last, and I am possessive of it.<\/p>\n<p>That rhythm continues right into the fall of 1982, even though I am teaching a four-course load at Colby-Sawyer and two night courses elsewhere. Outside of this correspondence, I am preparing all of my classes and correcting papers on weekends, just so I can spend a couple of hours each weekday morning writing poems. \u201cWriting is going fine, in spite of all my teaching and other duties!\u201d I write Don on October 31. \u201cI remain on my daily schedule!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7789\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7789\" style=\"width: 264px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2013\/08\/mcnair-sutton-002-c.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7789\" style=\"border: 1px solid black; margin-left: 2px; margin-right: 2px;\" title=\"McNair's farmhouse in North Sutton\" alt=\"mcnair-sutton-002-c\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2013\/08\/mcnair-sutton-002-c-300x200.jpg\" width=\"264\" height=\"176\" srcset=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2013\/08\/mcnair-sutton-002-c-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2013\/08\/mcnair-sutton-002-c.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 264px) 100vw, 264px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7789\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>McNair&#8217;s farmhouse in North Sutton<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"attachment_7758\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-7758\" style=\"width: 263px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2013\/08\/Hall-ep-farm.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-7758\" style=\"border: 1px solid black; margin-left: 2px; margin-right: 2px;\" title=\"Eagle Pond Farm\" alt=\"Hall-ep-farm\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2013\/08\/Hall-ep-farm-300x199.jpg\" width=\"263\" height=\"175\" srcset=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2013\/08\/Hall-ep-farm-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2013\/08\/Hall-ep-farm.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 263px) 100vw, 263px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-7758\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Eagle Pond Farm<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In the meantime Don continues with his freelance writing and his poetry readings around the country. Busy as he is, it&#8217;s hard to schedule time in the fall of 1982 to discuss the organization of my book manuscript, <em>The Faces of Americans in 1853<\/em>, at his farmhouse, but I persist. Four years into the submission of my collection\u00a0(I call it the&#8221;Most Famous Little-Known Unpublished Manuscript of Our Times&#8221;), I spend more time than ever in these letters fretting over its shape and content.<\/p>\n<p>We meet at last to prepare the book for my own fall campaign.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[This section has 55 letters]<\/strong><\/p>\n<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-2250\" data-postid=\"2250\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-2250 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My year-long sabbatical leave from Colby Sawyer has been crucial to continuing the momentum started by the NEA fellowship, providing a range of poems in progress together with poems for Joey\u2019s \u201cfall campaign,\u201d as Don has begun to call the process of submitting to magazines. \u201cYou are really building up a nice group for Joey,\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2341,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35504,42979],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2250"}],"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\/2341"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2250"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11691,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2250\/revisions\/11691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}