Stephen Kuusisto - Planet of the Blind

HIGH PRAISE FOR STEPHEN KUUSISTOS
PLANET OF THE BLIND

Historically, the blind have been endowed with divine judgment and magical power. Kuusisto is a bearer of such insight and enchantment. In his breathtaking memoir, he creates a world of brilliance, color and fertile imaginings. In Planet of the Blind, the ordinary is miraculous.

San Francisco Chronicle

EXQUISITELY OBSERVED BEAUTIFULLY POETIC a gripping and literary narrative, loaded with unusual metaphoric language, the kind that startles in its descriptive power and brings the reader persuasively to an unfamiliar place.

The New York Times Book Review

THE SHEER BEAUTY OF KUUSISTOS WRITING creates a miraculous planet: a swirl of sensation and nuanced perception, ecstasy, terror, and love. Here a soul on a bicycle is propelled by pure desire. And here we, in turn, are propelled toward a new vision.

Andrea Barrett, author of Ship Fever

A LUMINOUS MEMOIR OF A DARKENED WORLD a remarkable journey, funny at times, infuriating at others, yet rarely encumbered by self-pity.

The Boston Globe

EVERY PAGE OF THIS EXTRAORDINARY BOOK IS WORTH REFINGERING AND REREADING. Its as if the whole thing has been rubbed in gold dust: the prose has a richness not often found in poetry, let alone in memoirs by first-time writers, let alone in memoirs by first-time writers who happen to be blind.

The Guardian

KUUSISTOS WRITING IS A JOY: clear, poetic and embellished with wonderful imagery. His poetry has given him extra sight. He writes of colours and shapes that are windblown; waiting in the grocery store, he lives inside a Jackson Pollock painting. He sees things, not only Grand Central Station, as beautiful and useless. I almost feel: lucky man.

The Sunday Times (London)

Please turn the page for more extraordinary acclaim.

FOR AS MUCH AS THIS BOOK IS ABOUT BLINDNESS, IT IS ALSO ABOUT SEEING THE WORLD POETICALLY [Kuusisto] does an excellent job of conveying to the sighted, moment by moment, what its like to travel in a cone of near non-seeing.

Newsday

BEWITCHING DESCRIPTIONS LYRICAL PASSAGES His incredible resolve, good humor, and irrepressible love for life remind us of the awesome power of the imagination, and the true meaning of vision.

Booklist

I would recommend this book to all people who have the gift of sight and who have yet to thank God for it. Kuusisto knows enough of the visible world to describe and evoke its wondersand they are wonders for him too. His yearning evocations of the sights that I take for granted often make me ashamed.

The Times (London)

Here is a book that not only illuminates how much sight means to us, but alsoas in the work of so many poetsdeals with seeing in both literal and metaphorical terms. One reason the book is so moving is that Kuusistos poetic skills let him use language to full effect.

The Sunday Oregonian

A MASTERFUL COMING-OUT STORY in which the authors secret life involves not sexuality but blindness. An astonishing, occasionally dismaying, and sometimes heartbreaking glimpse of life on the planet of the blind.

Kirkus Review

A Delta Book
Published by
Dell Publishing
a division of
Bantam Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
New York, New York

Excerpt from Fugue of Death by Paul Cohen from POEMS OF PAUL CELAN, translated by Michael Hamburger. Copyright 1995 by Michael Hamburger. Reprinted by permission of Persea Books, Inc.

Excerpt from The Pure Good of Theory by Wallace Stevens from COLLECTED POEMS by Wallace Stevens. Copyright 1954 by Wallace Stevens. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

Excerpt from the poem Horae Canonicae by W. H. Auden from COLLECTED POEMS OF W. H. AUDEN by W. H. Auden. Copyright by W. H. Auden. Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc.

Excerpt from A Way to Love God by Robert Penn Warren from NEW AND SELECTED POEMS, 19231985 by Robert Penn Warren. Copyright by Robert Penn Warren. Reprinted by permission of The William Morris Agency.

Copyright 1998 by Stephen Kuusisto

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address: The Dial Press, New York, New York.

The trademark Delta is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.

eISBN: 978-0-307-83005-0

Reprinted by arrangement with The Dial Press

Published simultaneously in Canada

BVG

v3.1

NOTE TO THE READER

In an effort to safeguard the privacy of several individuals, the author has changed their names and, in some cases, disguised identifying characteristics or created composite characters.

Ive entered Grand Central Station with guide dog Corky, my yellow Labrador. We stand uncertain, man and dog collecting our wits while thousands of five oclock commuters jostle around us. Beside them, Corky and I are in slow motion, like two sea lions. Weve suddenly found ourselves in the ocean, and here in this railway terminal, where pickpockets and knife artists roam the crowds, were moving in a different tempo. There is something about us, the perfect poise of the dog, the uprightness of the man, I dont know, a spirit maybe, fresh as the gibbous moon, the moon weve waited for, the one with the new light.

So this is our railway station, a temple for Hermes. We wash through the immense vault with no idea about how to find our train or the information kiosk. And just now it doesnt matter. None of the turmoil or anxiety of being lost will reach us because moving is holy, the very motion is a breeze from Jerusalem.

This blindness of mine still allows me to see colors and shapes that seem windblown; the great terminal is supremely lovely in its swaying hemlock darknesses and sudden pools of rose-colored electric light. We dont know where we are, and though the world is dangerous, its also haunting in its beauty. Even to a lost man with a speck of something like seeing, this minute here, just standing, taking in the air as a living circus, this is what tears of joy are for.

A railway employee has offered to guide me to my train. I hold his elbow gently, Corky heeling beside us, and we descend through the tunnels under the building. Ive decided to trust a stranger.

Welcome to the planet of the blind.