I’ve had it with these amateur sufferers, these sons of bitches who think their D League oppressions are anything more than a hangnail. Karl Ove Knausgaard for example. He’s what my grandmother would call a shallow piss pot of a man and he should thank his lucky stars he’s writing and publishing his pissant Little Bo Peep books in an age of literary decline. Invented struggle is beneath contempt. Why do I bother? Maybe because there are genuine writers, especially those with disabilities who are ten thousand times more powerful than Knausgaard or Anthony Doerr or Jose Saramago—just to name three writers I cannot stand though for different reasons and I won’t bore you. At least not right now.
What else? I’ve had it with men. All of them. And many women—the Trump girls and the boys club girls—the latter you find in higher ed administration rather frequently. I’ve had it with junior high mean girls who’ve grown up only in physical stature.
I’ve had it with corporation tee shirts, sports radio, Ted Cruz, the Great Cheeto in Chief, the oil and gas lobby, Ax deodorant, Big Pharma television advertising, other peoples fuchsia hair, bad tattoos, New York Yankees hats, BMW convertibles, slick supersonic info wars.
I’ve had it with congress which I won’t capitalize. It rhymes with emptiness.
I’ve had it with the pope the army the endomorphic police state, Vladimir Putin, Teresa May, all the little diapered Nazis who salute the Great Cheeto; I’ve had it with misogynistic rap, Diet Coke, school boards, free hotel breakfasts, cable news, the National Football League, the NCAA, single issue politics, flag worshipers, Monsanto, border walls, nuclear power, and dollar shave clubs. If it costs you, don’t shave.
I love Walt Whitman, Toni Morrison, rain at night, baseball, the Bill of Rights, and sailboats.
Thank you for listening.
ABOUT: Stephen Kuusisto 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 and Letters to Borges. A graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and a Fulbright Scholar, he 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. He is a frequent speaker in the US and abroad. His website is StephenKuusisto.com.
Have Dog, Will Travel: A Poet’s Journey is now available for pre-order:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
IndieBound.org
(Photo picturing the cover of Stephen Kuusisto’s new memoir “Have Dog, Will Travel” along with his former guide dogs Nira (top) and Corky, bottom.) Bottom photo by Marion Ettlinger
Planet of the Blind 
I think you have misread my intentions. I don’t believe in the idea that writers can not imagine the world through the empathetic imagination. I’ve written broadly about this. If you don’t like my distress at the conditions I’m highlighting then fine, stop reading the blog. But don’t be patronizing about it.
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I too have had it . . . .with writers and writing teachers who contend that no one can write about anything that he or she has not personally struggled with. “Invented struggle is beneath contempt.” Doesn’t that disenfranchise a hell of a lot of fiction?
I am also deeply and thoroughly tired of persons with disabilities who contend that persons without a disability are “amateur sufferers.” Excuse me? If my pain has no sigificance because I don’t have a disability, what about your joy? Doesn’t that belie your feelings about Corky?
I like much of your writing, Stephen. And I understand it is difficult to participate in a culture inured to persons with diverse needs. But I am unsubscribing from your blogs because I lately find little but rage.
Be well.
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A most excellent brief screed! Compact, cogent and pretty comprehensive!
And, in reference to your also excellent FB post, I hope you will continue as coeditors.
Kind of chilly these days.
On Sat, Sep 22, 2018 at 8:12 AM Planet of the Blind wrote:
> skuusisto posted: “I’ve had it with these amateur sufferers, these sons of > bitches who think they’re D League oppressions are anything more than a > hangnail. Karl Ove Knausgaard for example. He’s what my grandmother would > call a shallow piss pot of a man and he should thank ” >
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Wow! Thanks for putting into words so much of my recent experience! Sharing—-
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I agree with all of the above!!! Stephen Kuusisto rocks!
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