{"id":2487,"date":"2012-05-10T15:24:29","date_gmt":"2012-05-10T19:24:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=2487"},"modified":"2014-01-28T15:50:05","modified_gmt":"2014-01-28T19:50:05","slug":"mcnair-to-hall-january-4-1984","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/mcnair-to-hall-january-4-1984\/","title":{"rendered":"McNair to Hall: January 4, 1984"},"content":{"rendered":"<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"vertical-align: top; background: white; float: left;\"><a class=\"shutterset\" title=\"Letter from McNair to Hall, January 4, 1984, Milne Special Collections and Archives, University of New Hampshire\" href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2014\/01\/McNair-Hall-19840104-001-unh-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-2078 alignleft\" style=\"border: 1px solid gray; background: white;\" alt=\"Letter from McNair to Hall, January 4, 1984, Milne Special Collections and Archives, University of New Hampshire\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2014\/01\/McNair-Hall-19840104-001-unh-1.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;\">January 4, 1984<br \/>\nDear Don,<\/p>\n<p>I will now be small. I didn\u2019t get an NEA this time,<br \/>\nand I resent it.<\/p>\n<p>Most of my submitted poems were first in <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Poetry<\/span><br \/>\nand <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Atlantic<\/span>. Some have been or will be in the<br \/>\n84 and 85 issues of <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">The Anthology of Magazine Verse<\/span>\u2026<br \/>\nOthers may be in the upcoming Pushcart book. And there<br \/>\nwas work which won the \u201cbest poems\u201d prize from <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Poetry<\/span>.<br \/>\nI will <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">bet<\/span> not many on the winning list<br \/>\nhad that sort of submission. I know<br \/>\nfrom my own sense of the poems they are among the<br \/>\nvery best I\u2019ve done&#8211;certainly miles beyond the<br \/>\nsubmission that got me an NEA four years ago.<\/p>\n<p>Is the lesson that the poems you write are not as<br \/>\nimportant as the luck of getting the right readers for them?<br \/>\nI do think so.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, well. You can\u2019t win them all and shouldn\u2019t,<br \/>\nas I do, <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">expect<\/span> to. I believe I have <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">finally<\/span> learned<br \/>\nthe truth of \u201cExpect Nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Now that I\u2019ve vented spleen, I\u2019m beginning<br \/>\nto feel good about returning to the beautiful planet<br \/>\nof the poem, free from the Great American Contests<br \/>\nof <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">this<\/span> world.<\/p>\n<p>I love making poems!<\/p>\n<p>Wes<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-2487\" data-postid=\"2487\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-2487 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Click image to view] January 4, 1984 Dear Don, I will now be small. I didn\u2019t get an NEA this time, and I resent it. Most of my submitted poems were first in Poetry and The Atlantic. Some have been or will be in the 84 and 85 issues of The Anthology of Magazine Verse\u2026 [&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":[60366,35504,77589,42963,293],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2487"}],"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=2487"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11644,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2487\/revisions\/11644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}