Finding the Light: The Poetry and Prose of Stephen Kuusisto
April is National Poetry Month - Get Inspired
SPI is pleased to name Stephen Kuusisto as our featured National Poetry Month Poet for 2024. He is the author of the memoirs Have Dog, Will Travel; Planet of the Blind ( a New York Times “Notable Book of the Year”); and Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening, and of the poetry collections Only Bread, Only Light; Letters to Borges; Old Horse, What is to be Done?; and Someone Falls Overboard.
A graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and a Fulbright Scholar, Stephen has taught at the University of Iowa, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and Ohio State University. He currently teaches at Syracuse University, where he holds a University Professorship in Disability Studies and is the director of the Renee Crown Honors Program. He is a frequent speaker in the US and abroad.
Stephen’s poems are written “from the light of darkness.”
From the introduction to his memoir Planet of the Blind, “As a boy, he careened down the street on the bicycle his mother bought him. As a teenager, he traveled to Europe and played basketball. As a young man, he won scholarships, taught classes, and went bird-watching. And all the while, Stephen Kuusisto would not utter, even to himself, the one central truth of his life: he could not see. With 20/200 vision in his better eye, he was legally blind. Writes Kuusisto: “I see like a person who looks through a kaleidoscope; my impressions of the world at once beautiful and largely useless.”
In addition to sharing Stephen’s SPI story, which can be found here, we have developed projects and project prompts for those wanting to learn more about Stephen, consider his world and his poetic response to blindness, explore their own “inner world” of creativity, and open their hearts and minds to a greater understanding of what it is to be blind or visually impaired.
SPI is grateful to poet, friend, and oral historian Chard deNiord for having served as the interviewer for this recording.
Our Projects and Project Prompts
Andrew Wyeth, Wind from the Sea, 1947
Depict the Invisible. After listening to Track 06_Creating Images That Can’t Be Seen, students are asked to write a poem and draw or paint a picture of something that can’t be seen. Examples include the wind, a dream, a whisper, hope, justice, truth, compassion, and humility. Students are introduced to Stephen’s writing on the project page and through links to the Poetry Foundation website. You can reference Who Has Seen the Wind by Christina Rossetti here.
Exploring Inner Worlds. Using Track 02_Childhood from Stephen’s SPI recording as a jumping-off point, these project prompts aim to foster an appreciation of the complexities of poets’ inner worlds while encouraging students to reflect on their own experiences and creative expression.
Walk in His Shoes. After listening to Track 07_ The Benevolent Disobedience of a Guide Dog, students are encouraged to participate in this project, which is designed to foster empathy and understanding among young people towards individuals who are blind or visually impaired.
Full projects and project prompts are available on Stephen’s SPI webpage.
Additional Resources
PBS News Hour This Poet’s Guide Dog Helped Him Discover a New World
The Poetry Foundation Stephen Kuusisto
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