{"id":3850,"date":"2012-08-15T09:53:14","date_gmt":"2012-08-15T13:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=3850"},"modified":"2013-12-18T17:34:59","modified_gmt":"2013-12-18T21:34:59","slug":"mcnair-to-hall-september-24-1984","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/mcnair-to-hall-september-24-1984\/","title":{"rendered":"McNair to Hall, September 24, 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, September 24, 1984, Page 1, Milne Special Collections and Archives, University of New Hampshire\" href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/08\/McNair-Hall-19840924-001-unh.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, September 24, 1984, Page 1, Milne Special Collections and Archives, University of New Hampshire\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/08\/McNair-Hall-19840924-001-unh.jpg\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" \/><\/a><a class=\"shutterset\" title=\"Letter from McNair to Hall, September 24, 1984, Page 2, Milne Special Collections and Archives, University of New Hampshire\" href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/08\/McNair-Hall-19840924-002-unh.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-2078 alignleft\" style=\"border: 0px none; background: white; display: none;\" alt=\"Letter from McNair to Hall, September 24, 1984, Page 2, Milne Special Collections and Archives, University of New Hampshire\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/08\/McNair-Hall-19840924-002-unh.jpg\" \/><\/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;\">September 24, 1984<br \/>\nDear Don,<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for your letter. I\u2019m glad you made<br \/>\na submission to the New Yorker. I was about to send<br \/>\ncopies of Seeing Cooch, What It Is, The Name, and<br \/>\nThe Shooting. Should I now assume you have copies<br \/>\nof all? I do like your pattern of sending to the<br \/>\nNew Yorker, then to The Atlantic, then to Poetry \u2013<br \/>\nat least I <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">think<\/span> that\u2019s the pattern \u2013 isn\u2019t it? And<br \/>\nit\u2019s so nice not to have to worry about rejections,<br \/>\nsince I never see them!<\/p>\n<p>As for the poem about Perley Hunt, I\u2019ve wanted<br \/>\nalmost from the beginning to make a prose poem<br \/>\nout of it \u2013 and this is what you\u2019ve given me<br \/>\nthe courage finally to do. I do like the rough,<br \/>\nunpolished language in it, the way it becomes<br \/>\nslack and suddenly taut. Maybe the prose<br \/>\npoem offered all along the only way to convey<br \/>\nthis feeling. I hope so. Please let me know<br \/>\nwhat you think!<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, I thank you for<\/p>\n<p>2\/<\/p>\n<p>the kind hopes you\u2019ve expressed about teaching<br \/>\nat Dartmouth and writing time in between.<br \/>\nI will keep you posted about both as soon as<br \/>\nmy schedule jells \u2013 and of course I\u2019ll let<br \/>\nyou know about job prospects.<\/p>\n<p>Love,<\/p>\n<p>Wes<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\"><em><strong>Editorial note about this letter<\/strong><\/em><\/span>: Here is the revision of &#8220;Perley Hunt Walking&#8221; McNair enclosed:<\/p>\n<p>PERLEY HUNT WALKING<\/p>\n<p>Perley Hunt is off balance. Each day the part of him<br \/>\nthat is no longer afraid to fall and the part of\u00a0him\u00a0that<br \/>\nis argue all the way to the mail. People\u00a0who\u00a0come out<br \/>\nof the post office see him walking,\u00a0by\u00a0almost\u00a0falling<br \/>\ndown on one side and on the\u00a0other,\u00a0holding aloft the<br \/>\nbony wing of his cane, and\u00a0in this\u00a0moment not one<br \/>\nthinks of his bad luck, or\u00a0of the\u00a0lucky\u00a0life he might<br \/>\nhave had. None thinks of\u00a0any life\u00a0beyond\u00a0these hands<br \/>\nslowly passing the cane back\u00a0and\u00a0forth, this\u00a0miracle<br \/>\nof walking on the undulant earth.<\/p>\n<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-3850\" data-postid=\"3850\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-3850 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Click image to view] September 24, 1984 Dear Don, Thanks for your letter. I\u2019m glad you made a submission to the New Yorker. I was about to send copies of Seeing Cooch, What It Is, The Name, and The Shooting. Should I now assume you have copies of all? I do like your pattern of [&hellip;]<\/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\/3850"}],"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=3850"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11221,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3850\/revisions\/11221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}