{"id":2667,"date":"2012-06-19T13:41:09","date_gmt":"2012-06-19T17:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=2667"},"modified":"2013-12-18T22:10:18","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T02:10:18","slug":"hall-to-mcnair-may-9-1984","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/hall-to-mcnair-may-9-1984\/","title":{"rendered":"Hall to McNair: May 9, 1984"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"Letter<\/a>\"Letter<\/a>\"Letter<\/a><\/p>\n

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

9 May 1984<\/p>\n

Wesley McNair
\nHominy Pot Rd.
\nNorth Sutton, NH 03260<\/p>\n

Dear Wes,<\/p>\n

Good to hear from you \u2013 and good news. Have you told Mike Pride
\nhow much you liked that piece? I suppose you told him first<\/span>. I wrote
\nhim a note\u2026<\/p>\n

I think I like \u201cThe Shooting\u201d the way it is, however we explain it.
\nAlas, the New Yorker turned it down. It is off elsewhere now.<\/p>\n

Tell me more about the Dartmouth job. It is just for one term?
\nYou will be taking leave from Colby-Sawyer, and only leave? When you
\nsay \u201chead of the writing program,\u201d you mean the creative writing, or the
\ncomposition? Because you mention Cleopatra, you must be speaking of
\ncreative writing. Very good.<\/p>\n

[Text redacted] I have spoken of you to Cleopatra, and I do believe that I
\nsent her a copy of your book. I know I did. Therefore maybe I was some
\nhelp. I would like to think so, as ever!<\/p>\n

Speaking of which, tomorrow I go down to Washington, to address
\nthe National Council on the Arts about the necessity of literature, and
\neven of the endowment\u2019s support of literature\u2026and you (probably unnamed)
\nwill be one of my best examples.<\/p>\n

It will be fun to talk with you about teaching creative writing.
\nGlad as I am not to be teaching it, I like talking<\/span> about teaching it.<\/p>\n

They will be able to demand a lot up there. I hate Dartmouth,
\nas I suppose you do also, for perfectly good reasons \u2013 but the students
\nwho will take creative writing will by and large be very bright kids. And
\nthere will be a good number of women. And I think it will be a terrific
\njob \u2013 and surely it will be a help for future jobs.<\/p>\n

I did not remember that you went to Keene State. I read my poems
\ndown there this spring, and had a good time talking with Bill Doreski,
\nwho teaches there. Do you know him? That would be good. Maybe you could
\nlive in your same house and just commute down there? (You can get a tape recorder,
\nand like me dictate while driving!)<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want you to go away! And I do want you to be able to
\nwrite\u2026<\/p>\n

Me too. (Not that in general I can complain!) Right now I am revising
\nWriting Well for the fifth edition, and working on the fourth edition of
\nA Writer\u2019s Reader, and it is driving me out of my tree. And I keep thinking:
\nOh, if only I could spend hours and hours and hours working on poems.
\nWell, in a month or so I will be able to, and then I will decide that I
\nam a terrible poet and get all depressed and everything. It is absolutely
\nimpossible to win!<\/p>\n

Good for you this summer.<\/p>\n

I have gotten back into that Day I was Older again, and the other
\none in Iowa about the Sister at the Pond, and have made major revisions
\nin both poems. As usual. And in fact my revision of the Day I was Older,
\nalthough it will not please you so much as the original poem, owes a
\ngreat deal to you, and to the copy of the poem that you dug up for me.
\nThank you. I will show it to you when it gets less volatile.<\/p>\n

For that matter, the other day I revised “The Man in the Dead Machine.\u201d I had
\nread it aloud one thousand one hundred and forty-seven times, and that last time I saw
\nsomething about it. What do you think?<\/p>\n

Love as ever,<\/p>\n

Don<\/p>\n

THE MAN IN THE DEAD MACHINE<\/p>\n

High on a slope in New Guinea
\nthe Grumman Hellcat
\nlodges among bright vines
\nas thick as arms. In nineteen-forty-three,
\nthe clenched hand of a pilot
\nglided it here
\nwhere no one has ever been.<\/p>\n

In the cockpit the helmeted
\nskeleton sits
\nupright, held
\nby dry sinews at neck
\nand shoulder, and by webbing
\nthat straps the pelvic cross
\nto the cracked
\nleather of the seat, and the breastbone
\nto the canvas cover
\nof the parachute.<\/p>\n

Or say that the shrapnel
\nmissed me, I flew
\nback to the carrier, and every morning
\ntake the train, my pale
\nhands on a black case, and sit
\nupright, held
\nby the firm webbing.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\n

Read The Day I Was Older<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>(published version)<\/span><\/p>\n

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

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

[Click image to view] 9 May 1984 Wesley McNair Hominy Pot Rd. North Sutton, NH 03260 Dear Wes, Good to hear from you \u2013 and good news. Have you told Mike Pride how much you liked that piece? I suppose you told him first. I wrote him a note\u2026 I think I like \u201cThe Shooting\u201d […]<\/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":[60366,596,42965,35504,77589],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2667"}],"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=2667"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11413,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2667\/revisions\/11413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}