{"id":691,"date":"2012-01-10T14:13:33","date_gmt":"2012-01-10T18:13:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=691"},"modified":"2013-10-16T21:44:00","modified_gmt":"2013-10-17T01:44:00","slug":"hall-to-mcnair-january-7-1977","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/hall-to-mcnair-january-7-1977\/","title":{"rendered":"Hall to McNair: January 7, 1977"},"content":{"rendered":"<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"vertical-align: top; background: white; float: left;\"><a class=\"shutterset\" title=\"Letter from Hall to McNair, January 7, 1977. Colby College Special Collections.\" href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/01\/Hall-McNair-19770107-001-colby.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-2078 alignleft\" style=\"border: 1px solid gray; background: white;\" alt=\"Hall-to-McNair-01-07-77\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/01\/Hall-McNair-19770107-001-colby.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;\">7 January 1977<\/p>\n<p>Wes McNair<br \/>\nSutton<br \/>\nNew Hampshire 03260<\/p>\n<p>Dear Wes,<\/p>\n<p>Many thanks for that letter. I\u2019m delighted that you like the<br \/>\npoems. The minute I saw how good your poems were, I wanted you to like<br \/>\nmy poems! I look forward to showing you more.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to take a chance and wait to do a book-book, I will<br \/>\nonly applaud your courage! That is, I know perfectly well \u2013 and you do<br \/>\ntoo \u2013 that a lot of bad books get published, and a number of good books<br \/>\ngo unpublished, at least for quite a while \u2013 and that quality does not<br \/>\nguarantee acceptance, etc. But I am very very <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">high<\/span> on your poems, and<br \/>\nI could for instance recommend them very very highly to Harper &amp; Row, and<br \/>\nthat might help. I should say though that I have given \u201cvery very high<br \/>\nrecommendation\u201d to Harper &amp; Row in the past, and I probably have, at<br \/>\nthat level, I\u2019m probably only batting about 400. Or less [<em>handwritten<\/em>].<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m happy \u2013 we\u2019re happy \u2013 if our admiration for your poems has<br \/>\nfelt good to you. No, it doesn\u2019t surprise me. I was hoping it would<br \/>\nhelp. It\u2019s so rare that one can feel that way, that one can really look<br \/>\na man in the eyes and express that kind of confidence \u2013 it\u2019s a delight to<br \/>\nbe able to do it.<\/p>\n<p>Go ahead and be consumed with self-doubt. Some day you will hear<br \/>\nme express \u201cconfidence\u201d in somebody you think is absolutely terrible. Or<br \/>\nwhatever. That is, confidence is probably not even a useful quality among<br \/>\npoets! But it sure does feel good, when you feel it from time to time,<br \/>\ndoesn\u2019t it? Your letter has cheered me up about those poems. I was a<br \/>\nlittle bit down on some of them, for one reason or another \u2013 possibly sun<br \/>\nspots or the full moon!<\/p>\n<p>We look forward to the revised copy of the manuscript, heaven knows.<br \/>\nDrop in when you\u2019re over this way.<\/p>\n<p>Best as ever,<\/p>\n<p>Don<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<hr \/>\n<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-691\" data-postid=\"691\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-691 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Click image to view] 7 January 1977 Wes McNair Sutton New Hampshire 03260 Dear Wes, Many thanks for that letter. I\u2019m delighted that you like the poems. The minute I saw how good your poems were, I wanted you to like my poems! I look forward to showing you more. If you want to take [&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":[27136,596,42965,35504,35505],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691"}],"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=691"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9042,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691\/revisions\/9042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}