{"id":952,"date":"2012-01-19T16:15:56","date_gmt":"2012-01-19T20:15:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=952"},"modified":"2013-12-18T19:53:06","modified_gmt":"2013-12-18T23:53:06","slug":"hall-to-mcnair-april-4-1978","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/hall-to-mcnair-april-4-1978\/","title":{"rendered":"Hall to McNair, April 4, 1978"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"Page-1-Hall-to-McNair-4-4-1978\"<\/a>\"Page-2-Hall-to-McNair-4-4-1978\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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

4 April 1978<\/p>\n

Wes McNair
\n5716 C.Colon
\nSantiago 10
\nChile<\/p>\n

Dear Wes,<\/p>\n

I\u2019m terribly sorry to have taken so long. I guess I wrote you what
\nI have been up to, so there is no point in repeating it now. I dictate
\nthis on a Monday. Yesterday I \u201cfinished\u201d the final revision of the revision
\nof Writing Well, which I will deliver tomorrow in Boston. Today I \u201cfinished\u201d
\nmy decisions about the make-up of A Writer\u2019s Reader, which I will meet with
\nmy editor about, for four hours tomorrow in Boston. Then I fly to Baltimore,
\nread at Goucher College, and come back the next day. I\u2019ve got to finish my
\nlong piece on MacLeish for the New York Times Book Review. I have to finish
\ntaking notes on Henry Moore for the piece I will write about him, in England –
\nwhere we go in ten days. And I am supposed to finish the draft of my poetry
\ntextbook for Holt, and I don\u2019t know quite how many days that will take.
\nAnd I have two more poetry readings, taking me away. Wow. Anyway, I want
\nto write.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not convinced about including the translations of Parra in your
\nfirst book of poems. I\u2019m not sure that they mean quite that much, in
\nEnglish. \u2026I\u2019m not against printing translations in a book. Jane is
\ngoing to do some of her Ackhamatova\u2019s in the book. We do look forward
\nto seeing your book. And things are not going to be so horrendous, by
\nthe time you get back. Even before that. I think that things will simmer
\ndown in June and July.<\/p>\n

\u2026I\u2019m glad you are coming back at the end of August. I had feared
\nyou might take another year. Good for us all. Oh, I know we will all be
\nbusy, and we won\u2019t see each other all that often – but a little will be
\nbetter than none. We look forward to you and Diane.<\/p>\n

I do believe that the version of Stone Walls which I sent you is the
\nlast one\u2026 Until I do a Selected Poems or something anyway. My book will
\nbe out in August, in time for your return. I have already done galleys.
\nThey are going to print one of the old pictures of this house, on the dust
\njacket and the title page. I\u2019m pleased. \u2026I have been having some very
\ngood reviews, and letters, about Remembering Poets, which came out at the
\nend of February. So far so good.<\/p>\n

About the Parra. I don\u2019t like \u201cThe Beggar.\u201d That is, I am talking
\nabout the English poem that I read. I am not talking about your translation<\/p>\n

2\/<\/p>\n

as opposed to anybody else\u2019s – because I haven\u2019t read anybody else\u2019s – nor
\nam I talking about Parra, because I haven\u2019t read it in Spanish, and couldn\u2019t
\nif I had the text available. I just don\u2019t like the poem I read here. To
\nme, there is nothing to it. I dislike that kind of rhythm, at the end –
\nwhich I see in about two-thirds of poems I read by college freshman.
\nThe irony of the parenthesis seems flat. With the title, and the first two
\nlines, I knew exactly what the end of the poem was going to be.<\/p>\n

And there is not a single word in it that sounds like translation-ese,
\nor that sounds misplaced or wrong. I wish there were another way to say
\n\u201cspill their blood\u201d but that is doubtless exactly what it is in translation<\/p>\n

from Spanish. And I cannot believe the fault is the translations. Yet,<\/p>\n

if you translated it, you must have found it beautiful in Spanish\u2026 So
\nI don\u2019t know what to say. I think it is predictable, uninteresting etc.
\nI don\u2019t like it.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, I like \u201cA Man\u201d at the other extreme. I like it
\nvery very much. It seems to me quite unpredictable. It seems absolutely
\ncinematic in its effects. Is that true? Or, does it seem so to you?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t like \u201cStains on the Wall\u201d very much, in either your version
\nor William\u2019s. Most of the time, I prefer your version to William\u2019s, but
\non two occasions I sort of prefer his. I say \u201csort of\u201d because I don\u2019t like
\nhis first line – it is awkward, really awkward – but I dislike \u201cthe darkness
\ndescends\u201d possibly even more. It seems pompous, latinate, overly alliterative,
\ncorny. Neither line seems to me to have any overtones of holocaust. \u201cFalls
\ncompletely\u201d is a bit more violent than \u201cdescends.\u201d \u201cDarkness descends\u201d
\nsimply seems like poesy. \u201cFalls completely on us\u201d seems amateurish.<\/p>\n

One place where I really think you are wrong is in using the word
\n\u201chorses.\u201d I read your translation before I saw the Williams, and read
\nyour comments – and I was totally bewildered by \u201chorses.\u201d Because horses
\nare not mythological animals. What is wrong with this series? Horses,
\ndragons, salamanders. Well, what is wrong with the series is that two
\nof the three are mythological animals and the third one is not. (There is
\na real salamander, I realize. But following mythological animals, this is
\nthe other kind.) So I think it ought to be some osrt [sic] of mythologized horse –
\nhippogrif, unicorn, centaur\u2026anything, providing it\u2019s mythological – that
\nis, if it going to go with a griffin and so on.<\/p>\n

I much prefer \u201cmysterious\u201d to \u201cextraordinary\u201d and I like \u201clook like\u201d
\nbetter than \u201cseemed to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only other point where I wonder – because I definitely like men
\non their knees better than I like kneeling men, etc. – is \u201cequestrian mon-
\numents\u201d as opposed to \u201cstatues on horseback\u2026\u201d- where it seems to me that
\nequestrian monuments is a bit<\/span> literary, a bit pompous sounding.<\/p>\n

Does Parra\u2019s Spanish have the rather terrifying pun on \u201ccoming\u201d?
\nIt is pretty heavy, in the English.<\/p>\n

I like the \u201cMemory of North Sutton.\u201d What about dropping \u201cthe\u201d in
\nthe last line? The rhythm seems a bit stronger to me. I like it!<\/p>\n

Best as ever, and hurry home, with love to Diane from Jane and me,<\/p>\n

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

\n

Read Memory of North Sutton <\/span><\/a><\/strong>(published version)<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n\n

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

[Click image to view] 4 April 1978 Wes McNair 5716 C.Colon Santiago 10 Chile Dear Wes, I\u2019m terribly sorry to have taken so long. I guess I wrote you what I have been up to, so there is no point in repeating it now. I dictate this on a Monday. Yesterday I \u201cfinished\u201d the final […]<\/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":[35316,596,42965,35504,35505],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952"}],"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=952"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11259,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952\/revisions\/11259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}