Wesley McNair
Encyclopedia
Wesley McNair is an American
poet
, writer, editor, and professor. He has authored nine collections of poetry, most recently, Lovers of the Lost: New and Selected Poems (David R. Godine
, 2010). In addition to his career in poetry, McNair has written three books of prose, including a memoir, The Words I Chose. He has edited several anthologies of Maine writing, and served as guest editor of the 2010 Pushcart Prize
Annual.
According to United States Artists
, an important theme in McNair’s poetry reveals "the struggles of the economic misfits of northern New England, often with humor and through the use of telling details." McNair writes autobiographical poems that explore the difficulty of family bonds and critique American culture, sometimes mixing the two themes together, as in his long narrative piece “My Brother Running,” in which he links his brother’s fatal heart attack after months of desperate running with the explosion of NASA’s Challenger shuttle.
A New Hampshire
native who has lived for many years in Mercer, Maine
, McNair has earned two degrees from Middlebury College
, an MA in English, and an M.Litt. in American literature. He has also studied American literature, art, and history at Dartmouth College
, sponsored by a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship.
As of 2011, McNair is professor emeritus and writer in residence at the University of Maine at Farmington
. In March 2011 he became Poet Laureate of Maine.
Fellowships, and a Guggenheim Fellowship
. Among his other honors are the Theodore Roethke Prize, The Jane Kenyon
Award for Outstanding Book of Poetry, the Devins Award for Poetry, the Eunice Tietjens Prize from Poetry magazine, and the Sarah Josepha Hale Medal for his “distinguished contribution to the world of letters.” In 2006, he was selected for a United States Artists
Fellowship.
, The Atlantic, The Gettysburg Review
, Green Mountain Review, The Iowa Review
, The Kenyon Review
, Michigan Quarterly Review
, Mid-American Review
, The New Criterion
, New England Review
, Pleiades
, Ploughshares
, Poetry
, Poetry Northwest
, Prairie Schooner, Sewanee Review
, Slate
, The Virginia Quarterly Review
, Witness
, and Yankee Magazine. Featured on The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor and National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition
, McNair's work has also appeared in the Pushcart Prize Annual, two editions of The Best American Poetry
, and over fifty anthologies and textbooks.
in the winter of 2009-2007, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Philip Levine
called McNair "one of the great storytellers of contemporary poetry." In the same journal in the fall of 2002, Maxine Kumin
, the United States Poet Laureate from 1981 to 1982, called McNair "a master craftsman." In a 1989 review that appeared in the Harvard Review
, Donald Hall
, who served as the United States Poet Laureate from 2006 to 2007, remarked, "Because he is a true poet, his New England is unlimited. Whole lives fill small lines, real to this poet, therefore to us."
In the summer of 2002, the Ruminator Review
wrote of McNair's book Fire that the poet has created “one of the most individual and original bodies of work by a poet of his generation.”
in 2006. Taking up approximately 100 linear feet in the college library’s Special Collections, the Wesley McNair Papers include:
In 2010, Colby College’s Special Collections Librarian Patricia Burdick launched an innovative new Web site that utilities McNair’s poetry to increase understanding of and appreciation for the making of poetry. The interactive site includes scanned and transcribed notebook pages showing the development of selected poems, and presents them with final published texts, as well as related audio recordings. The site is accompanied by teaching and learning tools.
Click here to visit Colby College’s interactive McNair archive and teaching tools.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, writer, editor, and professor. He has authored nine collections of poetry, most recently, Lovers of the Lost: New and Selected Poems (David R. Godine
David R. Godine
David R. Godine is the founder and president of David R. Godine, Inc., a small publishing house located in Boston, Massachusetts. The company is independent and its list tends to reflect the individual tastes of its president....
, 2010). In addition to his career in poetry, McNair has written three books of prose, including a memoir, The Words I Chose. He has edited several anthologies of Maine writing, and served as guest editor of the 2010 Pushcart Prize
Pushcart Prize
The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are invited to nominate up to 6 works they have featured....
Annual.
According to United States Artists
United States Artists
United States Artists is an independent nonprofit and nongovernmental philanthropic organization based in Los Angeles, California and dedicated to supporting the work of living American artists by the granting of cash awards, called USA Fellowships...
, an important theme in McNair’s poetry reveals "the struggles of the economic misfits of northern New England, often with humor and through the use of telling details." McNair writes autobiographical poems that explore the difficulty of family bonds and critique American culture, sometimes mixing the two themes together, as in his long narrative piece “My Brother Running,” in which he links his brother’s fatal heart attack after months of desperate running with the explosion of NASA’s Challenger shuttle.
A New Hampshire
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...
native who has lived for many years in Mercer, Maine
Mercer, Maine
Mercer is a town in Somerset County, Maine, United States. The town was named after Revolutionary War hero Brigadier General Hugh Mercer. The population was 647 at the 2000 census.-Geography:...
, McNair has earned two degrees from Middlebury College
Middlebury College
Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college located in Middlebury, Vermont, USA. Founded in 1800, it is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the United States. Drawing 2,400 undergraduates from all 50 United States and over 70 countries, Middlebury offers 44 majors in the arts,...
, an MA in English, and an M.Litt. in American literature. He has also studied American literature, art, and history at Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
, sponsored by a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship.
As of 2011, McNair is professor emeritus and writer in residence at the University of Maine at Farmington
University of Maine at Farmington
The University of Maine at Farmington, established in 1864 as Maine’s first public institution of higher education, is a public liberal arts college, and a founding member of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges offering programs in teacher education, human services and arts and sciences as...
. In March 2011 he became Poet Laureate of Maine.
Honors and awards
McNair has received two Rockefeller Fellowships for creative work at the Bellagio Center in Italy, two National Endowment for the ArtsNational Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
Fellowships, and a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
. Among his other honors are the Theodore Roethke Prize, The Jane Kenyon
Jane Kenyon
Jane Kenyon was an American poet and translator. Her work is often characterized as simple, spare, and emotionally resonant.-Life:...
Award for Outstanding Book of Poetry, the Devins Award for Poetry, the Eunice Tietjens Prize from Poetry magazine, and the Sarah Josepha Hale Medal for his “distinguished contribution to the world of letters.” In 2006, he was selected for a United States Artists
United States Artists
United States Artists is an independent nonprofit and nongovernmental philanthropic organization based in Los Angeles, California and dedicated to supporting the work of living American artists by the granting of cash awards, called USA Fellowships...
Fellowship.
Publishing History
McNair’s poems have appeared widely in literary journals and magazines including AGNIAGNI (magazine)
AGNI is an American literary magazine that publishes poetry, fiction, essays, reviews, interviews, and artwork twice a year in print and biweekly online from its home at Boston University...
, The Atlantic, The Gettysburg Review
The Gettysburg Review
The Gettysburg Review is a quarterly literary magazine featuring short stories, poetry, essays and reviews. Work appearing in the magazine often is reprinted in "best-of" anthologies and receives awards....
, Green Mountain Review, The Iowa Review
The Iowa Review
The Iowa Review is an American literary magazine that publishes fiction, poetry, essays, and reviews.Founded in 1970, this magazine is issued three times a year, during the months of April, August, and December. Originally, it was released on a quarterly basis. This frequency of publication lasted...
, The Kenyon Review
The Kenyon Review
The Kenyon Review is a Literary magazine based in Gambier, Ohio, USA, home of Kenyon College. The Review was founded in 1939 by John Crowe Ransom, critic and professor of English at Kenyon College, who served as its editor until 1959...
, Michigan Quarterly Review
Michigan Quarterly Review
The Michigan Quarterly Review is an American literary magazine founded in 1962 and published at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.The quarterly publishes art, essays, interviews, memoirs, fiction, poetry, and book reviews as well as writing "in a wide variety of research areas", according to...
, Mid-American Review
Mid-American Review
Mid-American Review is an international literary journal dedicated to publishing contemporary fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and translations. Founded in 1981, MAR is a publication of the Department of English and the College of Arts & Sciences at Bowling Green State University...
, The New Criterion
The New Criterion
The New Criterion is a New York-based monthly literary magazine and journal of artistic and cultural criticism, edited by Hilton Kramer and Roger Kimball. It has sections for criticism of poetry, theater, art, music, the media, and books...
, New England Review
New England Review
The New England Review is a quarterly literary magazine published by Middlebury College. Founded in New Hampshire in 1978 by poet, novelist, editor and professor Sydney Lea and poet Jay Parini, it was published as New England Review & Bread Loaf Quarterly from 1982 , until 1991 as a formal...
, Pleiades
Pleiades (magazine)
Pleiades: A Journal of New Writing is a literary semiannual, non-profit publisher of contemporary American poetry, fiction, essays, and extensive reviews of recent small/university press titles. First published in . The journal is published by the University of Central Missouri's English and...
, Ploughshares
Ploughshares
Ploughshares is an American literary magazine founded in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, Ploughshares has been based at Emerson College in the heart of Boston...
, Poetry
Poetry (magazine)
Poetry , published in Chicago, Illinois since 1912, is one of the leading monthly poetry journals in the English-speaking world. Published by the Poetry Foundation and currently edited by Christian Wiman, the magazine has a circulation of 30,000 and prints 300 poems per year out of approximately...
, Poetry Northwest
Poetry Northwest
Poetry Northwest was founded as a quarterly, poetry-only journal in 1959 by Errol Pritchard, with Carolyn Kizer, Richard Hugo, and Nelson Bentley as co-editors...
, Prairie Schooner, Sewanee Review
Sewanee Review
The Sewanee Review is a literary journal established in 1892 and the oldest continuously published periodical of its kind in the United States. It incorporates original fiction and poetry, as well as essays, reviews, and literary criticism...
, Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
, The Virginia Quarterly Review
The Virginia Quarterly Review
The Virginia Quarterly Review is a literary magazine in the United States. It was founded in 1925 by James Southall Wilson, at the request of University of Virginia president E. A. Alderman...
, Witness
Witness (magazine)
Witness is a literary and issue-oriented magazine published by the Black Mountain Institute at UNLV. Each issue includes fiction, poetry, memoir, and literary essays. The magazine has been honored with ten grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and writings from the journal have been...
, and Yankee Magazine. Featured on The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor and National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition
Weekend Edition
Weekend Edition is the name given to a set of American radio news magazines produced and distributed by National Public Radio . It is the weekend counterpart to Morning Edition. It consists of Weekend Edition Saturday and Weekend Edition Sunday , each of which airs for two hours, from 8 a.m. to 10...
, McNair's work has also appeared in the Pushcart Prize Annual, two editions of The Best American Poetry
The Best American Poetry
The Best American Poetry series consists of annual poetry anthologies, each containing seventy-five poems.The series, begun by poet and editor David Lehman in 1988, has a different guest editor every year...
, and over fifty anthologies and textbooks.
Critical Praise
Writing on McNair's collection The Ghosts of You and Me for the literary journal PloughsharesPloughshares
Ploughshares is an American literary magazine founded in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, Ploughshares has been based at Emerson College in the heart of Boston...
in the winter of 2009-2007, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Philip Levine
Philip Levine (poet)
Philip Levine is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet best known for his poems about working-class Detroit. He taught for over thirty years at the English Department of California State University, Fresno and held teaching positions at other universities as well...
called McNair "one of the great storytellers of contemporary poetry." In the same journal in the fall of 2002, Maxine Kumin
Maxine Kumin
Maxine Kumin is an American poet and author. She was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1981-1982.-Early years:...
, the United States Poet Laureate from 1981 to 1982, called McNair "a master craftsman." In a 1989 review that appeared in the Harvard Review
Harvard Review
The Harvard Review is a literary magazine published by the Harvard University library system.Its origins can be dated to 1986, when Stratis Haviaras, the curator of the libraries' poetry room founded a magazine called Erato to publicize poetry room authors.The first issue included a poem by Seamus...
, Donald Hall
Donald Hall
Donald Hall is an American poet. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 2006.-Personal life:...
, who served as the United States Poet Laureate from 2006 to 2007, remarked, "Because he is a true poet, his New England is unlimited. Whole lives fill small lines, real to this poet, therefore to us."
In the summer of 2002, the Ruminator Review
Ruminator Review
The Ruminator Review, originally the Hungry Mind Review, was a quarterly book review magazine founded by David Unowsky and published in St. Paul, Minnesota from 1986 to 2005. It included reviews of of all genres, as well as literary interviews, focusing on work published by smaller presses...
wrote of McNair's book Fire that the poet has created “one of the most individual and original bodies of work by a poet of his generation.”
The Wesley McNair Papers
McNair’s extensive papers were purchased by Colby CollegeColby College
Colby College is a private liberal arts college located on Mayflower Hill in Waterville, Maine. Founded in 1813, it is the 12th-oldest independent liberal arts college in the United States...
in 2006. Taking up approximately 100 linear feet in the college library’s Special Collections, the Wesley McNair Papers include:
- Scrapbooks, photographs, family letters, clippings and ephemera
- Early writings (elementary through high school)
- Notebooks with graduate school writings, teaching notes and poem drafts
- Manuscript drafts, first appearances and audio/visual recordings
- Extensive correspondence (Maine Times colleagues, Donald Hall, literary peers)
- A video of McNair giving a slide presentation and talk about his papers, entitled My Life as a Poet.
In 2010, Colby College’s Special Collections Librarian Patricia Burdick launched an innovative new Web site that utilities McNair’s poetry to increase understanding of and appreciation for the making of poetry. The interactive site includes scanned and transcribed notebook pages showing the development of selected poems, and presents them with final published texts, as well as related audio recordings. The site is accompanied by teaching and learning tools.
Click here to visit Colby College’s interactive McNair archive and teaching tools.
Sources
- Library of Congress Online Catalog > Wesley McNair
- Author Website > Biography
- University of Maine at Farmington > Humanities Faculty: Wesley McNair Bio
External links
- Author Website
- Web site: Wesley McNair Papers at Colby College
- Audio: Slate Magazine: Poem: A Weekly Poem Read by the Author > Losing My Hair > By Wesley McNair
- Audio: The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor > Poems by Wesley McNair
- Video: Wesley McNair reads at the Library of Congress
- Video: My Life as a Poet, a video of a slide presentation and talk by Wesley McNair at Colby College