FARMINGTON – It would be impossibly boring to listen to a list of all of poet/professor Wesley McNair’s accolades.

Fellowships from the Rockefeller, Fulbright and Guggenheim foundations.

The Robert Frost Prize. The Jane Kenyon Award for Outstanding Book of Poetry (for “Fire”). The Sarah Josepha Hale Medal (which also has been awarded to notables Robert Frost, May Sarton and Arthur Miller) for McNair’s “distinguished contribution to the world of letters.”

Two honorary doctoral degrees for literary distinction. A place on the nominating jury for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for 2002. An Emmy Award on his office wall.

Too many books to name. Included in too many anthologies to list.

In May, he’ll have another distinction to add to the list, one that’s far less glamorous but is as, if not more, necessary to note in his existence as a poet. Retirement.

Yes, it’s true.
Finally, writing full-time
At age 62 and after paying his dues and cashing paychecks from good jobs and bad, McNair will finally be able to list writing as his full-time job.

This May, he’ll walk away from the University of Maine at Farmington – an institution where he has taught since 1987.

“It’s bittersweet,” admitted McNair, who has the white beard of an ancient philosopher and jokes about growing old with the same ease as he hands out compliments.

“I do love this place. I feel that it’s a place that respects those (students) who do not have a social pedigree. It’s a public institution that assumes everyone has the chance to create their own pedigree.”

It’s a place where he feels comfortable. “The whole freckled mob of humanity comes through here,” he says of UMF. “All of the mutts and all of the mongrels. My people.”

McNair, the father and grandfather of four, lives in Mercer with his wife, Diane, and was a founder in 1992 of UMF’s acclaimed creative writing program, one of only a dozen or so in the country.

Now the head of that department, McNair will be back briefly next semester to teach an advanced poetry writing class. After that, his students will have to be satisfied with seeing his penetrating eyes peer out at them from the pages of book jackets.
Working on three books
Imprinted on all the students he has taught is his message that failure is part of the game of being a writer and that each person’s intuitive awareness is the truest part of them and should always be honored.

He is retiring now because his bank account is finally allowing him to. Now, his life will be devoted solely to living up to the label of “New England’s Poet” some have stuck on him.

Though he will do some reading and speaking, he’ll spend most of his time in Mercer or at his Temple camp, soaking up what he calls the organic cultural life of New England.

The working farms. The small towns with their own identities. The roadside signs that advertise free kittens with letters skewed, punctuation backwards.

“If I am the poet of any place, it’s this place,” he says.

He has three books in the works, an endless amount more in the mind.

“I can work as long as I have my notebook, my dog and my wife,” McNair says with a wry smile. And with a slight chuckle, he thinks it best to add, “And not necessarily in that order.”

For more information about Wesley McNair, log on to www.wesleymcnair.com.
sdepoy@sunjournal.com

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