{"id":3801,"date":"2012-08-14T11:26:02","date_gmt":"2012-08-14T15:26:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=3801"},"modified":"2013-11-06T16:37:32","modified_gmt":"2013-11-06T20:37:32","slug":"mcnair-to-hall-august-18-1984","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/mcnair-to-hall-august-18-1984\/","title":{"rendered":"McNair to Hall, August 18, 1984"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"Letter<\/a>\"Letter<\/a>\"Letter<\/a>\"Letter<\/a>\"Letter<\/a>\"Letter<\/a>\"Letter<\/a><\/p>\n

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

August 18, 1984<\/p>\n

Dear Don,<\/p>\n

I see from your letter I was not clear in my response
\nto three of your poems. I will try to be clearer<\/span>.<\/p>\n

I still think \u201cThe Rag Picker\u2019s Horse\u201d is a good poem,
\nbecause of the tension<\/span> between what is \u201ccharming and
\nfunny\u201d and what is serious. I don\u2019t think the humor
\ntakes places at the expense of the poem\u2019s serious
\ncontent. I think the humor intensifies the seriousness,
\nand vice-versa. This approach must<\/span> be OK,
\nbecause Frost approved it: \u201cIf it is with outer
\nseriousness, it must be with inner humor.
\nIt is with outer humor, it must be with
\ninner seriousness.\u201d<\/p>\n

For me, the poem exploits the language and
\ntone of the nursery rhyme. Nursery rhymes
\nhave the simple phrasings, the naive pictures \u2013
\nand sometimes the half-rhyme, comic rhyme
\nand extra metrical syllables \u2013 of this poem.
\nAll of these devices give to the childhood
\nrhymes their enchantment and their
\nhumor. Yet the content of nursery rhymes<\/p>\n

2\/<\/p>\n

is often unpleasant and unsettling. There\u2019s the woman
\nwho lived in a shoe and \u201cHad so many children, \/
\nShe didn\u2019t know what to do.\u201d What she finally did<\/span>
\ndo, you\u2019ll remember, was (after feeding them a
\nvery limited supper) to \u201cwhip them all soundly \/
\nAnd put them to bed.\u201d Certainly there\u2019s futility and
\ndespair in that poem, however comic it may be on
\nits surface. Or recall the poem Wally Tripp includes
\nin his illustrated book of Mother Goose:<\/p>\n

Granfa\u2019 Grigg had a pig
\nIn a field of clover,
\nPiggy died, Granfa\u2019 cried,
\nAnd all the fun was over.<\/p>\n

What sort of \u201cbeast\u201d would tell the story this way?
\nYet we could argue that an inner seriousness lies
\nbehind the outer humor here, too.<\/p>\n

When I first read \u201cRichard,\u201d it seemed to me
\nyou were writing about a young<\/span>, imaginative
\nchild who was so in tune with the variousness<\/span>
\nof the world, he could not see how adults,<\/p>\n

3\/<\/p>\n

or other creatures of habit, could behave as if the
\nunique things he<\/span> knew were parts of an
\nunsurprising and unpredictable reality. The
\n\u201camused adult\u201d was the narrator who, in
\nfurnishing some words Richard doesn\u2019t have to
\nexplain his thought, was sympathetic. And while
\nhe is also aware of the realities that had
\nalready begun to threaten his imaginative view
\nof the world, I thought you wanted him to be
\non Richard\u2019s side in the struggle. Again, I am
\nspeaking here of the poem I thought you wanted
\nto write \u2013 the poem that seemed as yet incomplete.<\/p>\n

Obviously, your saying that Richard is not a
\nyoung child changes the poem for me. To make
\nhim older, I do think you need to change
\n\u201cschool\u201d to \u201chigh school.\u201d Maybe that would
\nbe enough, though I\u2019m not sure about the
\nwords \u201cchildren\u201d and \u201cbabysitter\u201d (kids in
\ntheir mid-teens don\u2019t usually have babysitters,<\/p>\n

4\/<\/p>\n

so far as I know). Aside from the revisions regarding
\nage, maybe you should consider other<\/span> changes:
\nAren\u2019t \u201ccrowds \/ seated in rows at the movie\u201d (line 5)
\n\u201cspectators\u201d in the first<\/span> place? I know you make these
\ncrowds special<\/span> spectators, but you do so after the
\ncomma which follows \u201cspectators.\u201d And besides, movie
\ncrowds ^already are in a way \u201crehearsed to behave as crowds
\nbehave.\u201d More: Should \u201csubject\u201d in line 6 be
\nchanged to \u201cobject\u201d? I seem to think so, given
\nthe infinitive that follows the colon. Yet changing
\nto \u201cobject\u201d would make what\u2019s around the word
\nawkward \u2013 as if the spectators see something they
\ncan\u2019t<\/span> yet see\u2026..Incidentally, I still<\/span> think this
\nis potentially a good poem!<\/p>\n

How I got the idea your speaker in \u201cFelix\u201d was
\na trucker, I do not know \u2013 except<\/span> that the idea
\nhad to have come from negligent reading. Yet
\nmaybe a little part came from something else: my
\nfeeling that you ought to give some identity to
\nthe speaker beyond the identity provided in the
\npoem. I\u2019d still like a hint about why he\u2019s<\/p>\n

5\/<\/p>\n

driving west this<\/span> time (I like the continuous direction
\nof west in the poem, and the continuous failures resulting
\nfrom westward journeys). And I\u2019d like, still, a language
\nthat is less, well, literary<\/span>. I fully accept the speaker\u2019s
\nmetaphoric leaps (the \u201cwatery chair\u201d sort of thing).
\nPeople do make leaps like these in spirited talk \u2013 and
\ncapitalizing on that fact is all the better for poetry. What
\nI object to is this sort of thing: \u201cThe voice of my mind \/
\nturned mild and persuasive.\u201d I\u2019d prefer a speaking voice
\ncloser to what someone might actually say<\/span> \u2013 a voice
\nwith more emotional tone, showing how this guy feels
\nabout what he\u2019s going through, so I can sense him
\nmore strongly as a character. I\u2019d especially like a
\nmore feeling recollection, and daydream, of Felix, the
\nemotional center of a poem, and of the life. I
\nfind the emotional neutrality of the language odd.
\nI know you could say that the man is frozen
\nemotionally, the outcome of his past experience and
\ncurrent despair. And you might be right in saying so.
\nBut I don\u2019t think<\/span> you would be.<\/p>\n

About \u201cWaking the Next Morning,\u201d you are<\/span> right:
\nyou do need the title to explain the circumstance of<\/p>\n

6\/<\/p>\n

poem. I made the suggestion of \u201cThe Word\u201d or
\n\u201cThe Repeated Word\u201d because \u201cWaking the Next
\nMorning\u201d seems to tell too much, referring to what
\nhappens in the morning, and implying also what
\nhappened the night before. But I can see no other
\ntitle at this point that would work.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, I agree that the essential thing is
\nnot whether a poem has rhyme and meter, but
\nwhether it is a poem. And besides, I have always
\nput rhyme \u2013 or related sounds \u2013 in poems, even when
\nI never thought<\/span> about such things. Even now I
\nam surprised at how often images and lines come
\ncomplete with appropriate sounds \u2013 before I work
\non them. And when I don\u2019t like an image or line,
\nI often discover I don\u2019t like it because its sound
\nisn\u2019t right \u2013 the sound within, as at the end of,
\nthe line. And of course rhythm is extremely important,
\ntoo, though rhythm-as-meter still feels
\nuncomfortable to me now. (I like too much the
\nexcitement of arguing with the space to the right<\/p>\n

7\/<\/p>\n

of the poem as I write it.) But who knows? Maybe
\nsomeday I will turn Communist with you \u2013
\nand join the other New Hampshire McNairs! I do
\nthink that you achieve something in a poem like
\n\u201cA Walk in the West Country\u201d that free verse
\ncould never quite get. A fine sense of order
\nthat makes the disorder<\/span> of which the poem speaks the
\nmore overwhelming.<\/p>\n

Anyway<\/span>, I do like all<\/span> of the poems in this batch,
\nsome of them as is, others in their potential.
\nI only hope this attempt to help with them
\nis less confusing than my last attempt!<\/p>\n

Love \u2013 and courage<\/span> \u2013<\/p>\n

Wes<\/p>\n

PS. Thanks for the affirmation of the second \u201cafter.\u201d
\nP.P.S. Forgot to mention that \u201cwatery chair\u201d image works<\/span>
\nin its context. I\u2019m sorry I sent you scrambling for nothing.
\nYou should have no worries there. The mistake is mine.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n\n

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

[Click image to view] August 18, 1984 Dear Don, I see from your letter I was not clear in my response to three of your poems. I will try to be clearer. I still think \u201cThe Rag Picker\u2019s Horse\u201d is a good poem, because of the tension between what is \u201ccharming and funny\u201d and what […]<\/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":[60366,35504,77589,42963,293],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3801"}],"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=3801"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10664,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3801\/revisions\/10664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}