{"id":2412,"date":"2012-05-10T14:28:18","date_gmt":"2012-05-10T18:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=2412"},"modified":"2013-12-18T21:52:44","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T01:52:44","slug":"hall-to-mcnair-july-8-1983","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/hall-to-mcnair-july-8-1983\/","title":{"rendered":"Hall to McNair: July 8, 1983"},"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, July 8, 1983, Colby College Special Collections\" href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/05\/Hall-McNair-19830708-001-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, July 8, 1983, Colby College Special Collections\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/05\/Hall-McNair-19830708-001-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;\">8 July 1983<\/p>\n<p>Wes McNair<br \/>\nBox 43<br \/>\nNorth Sutton, NH<\/p>\n<p>Dear Wes,<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for the poem. I don\u2019t like this one so much, and<br \/>\nI cannot tell how much of it is the poem, and how much of it is<br \/>\nmy incomprehension\u2026 I am not sure. I think that the faith<br \/>\nhealer is speaking. But at the end, is it that he falls down<br \/>\nand holds onto the boy\u2019s wheelchair, or do we learn that he is<br \/>\nin a wheelchair himself? I am troubled by the dialect, or what-<br \/>\never we call it when the writer does a spoken grammar. It<br \/>\ndoesn\u2019t sound real to me \u2013 but I don\u2019t mean to say that it is<br \/>\n<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">not<\/span> real, not even like a transcription. I find it unconvincing.<br \/>\nJoey will be happy to send it out anyway. But it is not one<br \/>\nof my favorites, or not yet at any rate. I suppose I\u2019m not<br \/>\nquite sure how the father did it, when the boy remains only<br \/>\na chest, no limbs at all apparently. And I guess the whole<br \/>\nthing doesn\u2019t especially add up to me. Sorry about that.<\/p>\n<p>In general I save things until the New Yorker opens up,<br \/>\nas you know.<\/p>\n<p>Love as ever,<\/p>\n<p>Don<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><em>Editorial note about this letter:<\/em><\/span><\/strong> The poem Hall comments on is \u201cThe Faith Healer,\u201d which McNair sent to him in his previous letter. (Eventually Hall changed his mind and liked the poem.)<\/p>\n<p>Dispensing with the occasional dialect Hall mentions in this letter, McNair decided to keep the rest of &#8220;The Faith Healer&#8221; as he had it despite Hall&#8217;s objections, sending to Wilmot his new draft on <span style=\"color: #800000;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/mcnair-to-hall-september-25-1983\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">9\/25\/1983<\/span><\/a><\/span>. This became the published version, appearing in <em>Poetry<\/em> magazine and receiving, together with &#8220;The Portuguese Dictionary&#8221; and &#8220;Remembering Aprons,&#8221; <em>Poetry&#8217;s<\/em> Eunice Tietjens prize for 1984. See the final paragraph of Hall&#8217;s letter on <span style=\"color: #800000;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/hall-to-mcnair-october-7-1983\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">10\/7\/1983<\/span><\/a><\/span>, where he questions his criticism of the poem.<\/p>\n<p>Read <span style=\"color: #800000;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/the-faith-healer\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>The Faith Healer<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/span> <span style=\"color: #800000;\">(published version)<\/span><\/p>\n<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-2412\" data-postid=\"2412\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-2412 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Click image to view] 8 July 1983 Wes McNair Box 43 North Sutton, NH Dear Wes, Thanks for the poem. I don\u2019t like this one so much, and I cannot tell how much of it is the poem, and how much of it is my incomprehension\u2026 I am not sure. I think that the faith [&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":[35322,596,42965,35504,42982],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2412"}],"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=2412"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11393,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2412\/revisions\/11393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}