{"id":3797,"date":"2012-08-14T11:01:49","date_gmt":"2012-08-14T15:01:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=3797"},"modified":"2013-12-18T22:18:19","modified_gmt":"2013-12-19T02:18:19","slug":"hall-to-mcnair-august-16-1984","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/hall-to-mcnair-august-16-1984\/","title":{"rendered":"Hall to McNair, August 16, 1984"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"Letter<\/a>\"Letter<\/a><\/p>\n

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

16 August 1984<\/p>\n

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

Dear Wes,<\/p>\n

I like the second after<\/span>. It is a music for me. Stet!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m really pleased that you like the poems I sent. I have all
\nsorts of questions of course. Isn\u2019t \u201cSums\u201d a weird one? I cannot read
\nit aloud!<\/p>\n

Now about \u201cThe Ragpicker\u2019s Horse.\u201d You find it \u201ccharming and funny.\u201d
\nTwo other people to whom I sent it have hated it, I think because it was
\ncharming and funny. Their notion \u2013 which I understand \u2013 is that this is
\na poem about horror, about destitution\u2026in which the children are first
\nof all mourning a horse, and then howling in terror because they hear their
\nparents howling, and their parents are howling about rickets and starvation.
\nSo what the hell am I doing being charming and funny about it? Do you have
\nan answer? Why is it funny? I mean the last line mournful and horrible\u2026
\nbut can I do that when I rhyme \u201ctsoris\u201d with \u201chorse is\u201d? My fear is that I
\nallowed the decorativeness of the rhyming to carry the poem away with it,
\nand that in the process I became a heartleass beast.<\/p>\n

I love it that you talk about three poems here, written in rhyme and
\nmeter, without ever mentioning<\/span> that they are in rhyme and meter. That is
\nthe way I want it to be also. There are so many friends of mine who will
\nbelieve that I have turned from Communist to White Russian\u2026the politics,
\ntotally mistaken I do believe, of formal poetry!<\/p>\n

Maybe you are right about \u201churl,\u201d but it seems to me that I remember
\nsheep standing quite still, staring around, and then throwing their heads
\nwith great impetuosity down into the grass again. Does this ring any bells?
\nDidn\u2019t you<\/del> You didn\u2019t miss no<\/del> an allusion. Of course from \u201churl\u201d I took up an r with
\nRoman, and h with \u201cheads.\u201d<\/p>\n

I felt that \u201cWaking the Next Morning\u201d \u2013 the title itself \u2013 was
\nnecessary for the plot of the poem. Is it clear without it?
\n[Written in margin<\/em>]: Why\u2019s it wrong? Not that I\u2019m wedded to it.<\/p>\n

You are extremely helpful with Phototropism. You did not notice
\nthat it is written in syllabics \u2013 and I don\u2019t blame you. I never thought
\nof the jade plant cluttering the poem \u2013 and it is going out! Well, the
\nonly thing I think about it \u2013 thinking further \u2013 is that it links the
\nwoman to the gardening business. Maybe it doesn\u2019t go. But I had not even
\nconsidered the idea that it cluttered it with an extra plant. I must
\nthink more about that. I also think that the daylilies might have a location.
\nAll sorts of good help here.<\/p>\n

I have a lot of questions about your reading of \u201cFelix.\u201d You say
\nthat the image which you love \u2013 me too! \u2013 \u201ccollides\u201d with \u201ctwenty-five<\/p>\n

2\/<\/p>\n

years old forever\u2026\u201d Why? I don\u2019t know why. This morning I was looking
\nat it and I noticed that there is all sorts of figures and numbers in it,
\nand the word \u201cyears,\u201d would not be the problem? I seemed to need to say
\nthat he is still the same age he was when he drowned. But I could have
\nthat, without the numbers of twenty-five years old forever, by saying
\n\u201cforever still out of flight training school, or recently graduated from
\nYale\u2026\u201d as it were.<\/p>\n

You think that the speaker is more articulate than he out to be.
\nBut then you say he ought to be more \u201ctrucker-like,\u201d and he is nobody\u2019s
\ntrucker. At the very beginning he has that image about the ruler\u2019s line,
\nwhich is supposed to make it possible for him to \u201ctalk poetry\u201d again at the
\nend. And he is a Yale graduate, fifty-five years old, who is driving through
\nTexas for some unnamed purpose \u2013 doubtless to meet a client, who is a rich
\noilman, about buying Manhattan.<\/p>\n

I think I make him middleclass. They are driving from New Haven
\nto San Diego because they were back there for their third reunion at Yale.
\n(I do realize I didn\u2019t tell you this!) But here is a man who has been divorced
\na couple of times, who has been in a detox center, and who wishes to think of
\nhimself as being mild, speaking reasonably\u2026as he revises his old arguments,
\nin his driver\u2019s daydream. What more do I need, or where have I given you
\nmisleading information?<\/p>\n

Troubles with \u201cRichard,\u201d also. I suppose that this is a poem more or
\nless \u201cabout\u201d childhood schizophrenia. But it is not early childhood.
\nI think that I will change \u201cschool\u201d to \u201chigh school,\u201d or something like
\nthat. Because Richard, who is having this fantasy, is probably fourteen
\nor fifteen years old anyway. Then I think of putting It in quotation marks
\nagain \u2013 my sign that I am using \u201cI\u201d as a persona, or some persona other<\/span>
\nthan the usual persona that might call itself \u201cDonald Hall,\u201d\u2026 (Forgive
\nme the word \u201cpersona\u201d; it is an MFA word and when I hear it I reach for my
\ngun.) That is to say, I would put it in quotation marks and use the word
\n\u201cI\u201d instead of using the word \u201che\u201d.<\/p>\n

You want the poet\u2019s language to be closer to the perception of the
\nboy who actually experiences the disparity\u2026 Well, that is what I want too.
\nThere is no amused adult in the poem. What makes it sound amused? I find
\nit grim. These are the fantasies of the adolescent himself. Maybe I will
\nrepair it simply by the minor changes I mention. Would you look at the poem
\nwith these in mind? See what else I need to do. I need all the help I can
\nget! You give me a lot of help here \u2013 most especially with Phototropism.<\/p>\n

Love as ever,<\/p>\n

Don<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\n

Editoria<\/strong><\/em>l<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0note about this<\/strong> letter:<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0<\/em>Unfortunately, the drafts that Don sent of his poems at this point in their formation do not exist; one or two were later abandoned. Yet there are signs that through McNair’s previous letter, and his letter following this one, he had influence on Hall’s work–especially “My Friend Felix,”<\/span><\/a><\/span> which Hall sent for additional help during 1985.<\/p>\n\n

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

[Click image to view] 16 August 1984 Wes McNair Hominy Pot Rd. North Sutton, NH 03260 Dear Wes, I like the second after. It is a music for me. Stet! I\u2019m really pleased that you like the poems I sent. I have all sorts of questions of course. Isn\u2019t \u201cSums\u201d a weird one? I cannot […]<\/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\/3797"}],"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=3797"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11425,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3797\/revisions\/11425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}