Planet of the Blind

 

A glass of milk and winter rain,

I think this is how we return 

from the sea–or dreams of it,

the circumspect dead 

settling in the trees

to watch us all season. 

 

Of the ordinary life 

we don’t know much,

work with grief and pepper,

cook at dusk,

bristling blue stones of the brain

conducting the whole affair.

Submitted by Connie Kuusisto:

Friends and poetry lovers!

We are now counting down to the release next month of Steve’s new
book! Amazon is offering a special pre-order price (details below!) and
Steve would like to sweeten the deal.  Take advantage of Amazon’s
offer,  email a copy of your receipt to
authorsvirtualsolutions@gmail.com and you will automatically be entered
into a drawing to win an autographed copy of  “Only
Bread, Only Light”, Steve’s first book of poems  (Copper Canyon Press). 
(If you already have a copy, it would make a great gift for another
poetry lover!)

Unless notified otherwise, the scheduled publication date of “Letters
to Borges” is October 15th.  Steve will hold one random drawing a week
between now and then, and the final drawing will be held on the actual
date his new book is released.

For more details visit: http://www.stephenkuusisto.com – Letters to Borges: Pre-order and save!

What else do the pictures say? There is no such thing as an ordinary life. The blind soldiers are in a single file parade. Each holds his memories of heartbreak, of shattering violence, of the betrayal of history. Each man is blind in a new world without rational answers. The photographs remind me that I shouldn’t forget that devastating time. Just thinking about it I find I have to walk around my study, pick up small objects, a doll from Lapland, a small piece of votive comfort. The violence of the first world war is beyond comprehension, even now, almost a hundred years later. Imagine trying to find your way ahead, blind, after the battle of the Somme? Imagine having to resketch your own heart.

 

 

From What a Dog Can Do: A Memoir of Life with Guide Dogs

by Stephen Kuusisto, forthcoming from Simon and Schuster, 2014

  

Looking at pictures of the early guide dog schools and their first students is a powerful experience. The blind men all wear trench coats and high peaked caps and you see they are feeling their way with canes, detecting stone curbs, their dogs sitting obediently beside them. They have that military posture of another century, an impossible uprightness. The photo says we’re seeing an experiment. These are the wounded warriors of the first world war, attempting to return to the land of the living with their animal escorts.

 

From “What a Dog Can Do: A Memoir of Guide Dogs” by Stephen Kuusisto, forthcoming from Simon and Schuster in 2014

 

Subject: Please Vote for All Blind Children of TX

Hi folks!

Chase Bank has chosen several charities to take part in a community-giving ‘vote-a-thon’. Those charities receiving the most votes will receive a portion of the 5 million dollar cash prize donated by Chase Bank.

I’m pleased to announce that ‘All Blind Children of Texas’ has been chosen to participate in the voting process.

Please help us secure more funding for blind children and their families by casting your vote for ‘All Blind Children of Texas’ at:

www.chase.com/chasegiving (Chase customers may have to sign in)
or
http://www.facebook.com/ChaseCommunityGiving#!/ChaseCommunityGiving/app_162065369655

When you find a search box, type in ‘All Blind Children’. To vote for ‘All Blind Children of Texas’ you may have to download an application…but please vote. It only takes a few minutes of your time.

Deadline for votes is September 19, 2012.

Thanks for your help. Many blind children and their families in Texas will benefit if we can secure enough votes to share in the donation.

Yours in service,

Billy Brookshire, Board Member, All Blind Children of Texas

PS: Also, please share this with your friends. We need all the votes we can get.

 

 By Andrea Scarpino

1. Make sure the lighting is right. 

 

1. Wear power shoes. Even if the photo won’t capture them. 

 

1. Bring a change of outfit. 

 

1. Ask for help with bra straps, bobby pins in the hair. 

 

1. Sometimes, you’ll feel ridiculous. Go with it. 

 

1. Try smiling. Try being serious. 

 

1. Don’t think about wrinkles. 

 

1. Don’t let your earrings distract from your face. 

 

1. If photographing outside, listen for birds. Follow their lead. 

 

1. There’s a moment in the eyes when a person sees another human face : a light, a recognition, memory. You’ll know when the photograph has captured it. 

 

Back in 1998 I was offered the job of Commissioner of the Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities in New York City. I turned it down. I chose to return to teaching and went to Ohio State. Now I'm at Syracuse University and I travel to Manhattan frequently. 

via www.planet-of-the-blind.com

I'm reposting this as it's as true today as it was last week. New York City is in wholesale decline as a place for people with disabilities.

 

And night and far to go. Wishful songs, some from boyhood. The one about the fish and the old man. The one about rowing. And night and far to go. The uproar of living by day and dreaming by night. Your teeth wear out. The brass buttons on father’s uniform glitter up in the attic. And night and far to go. Have I ever told you my dear, that a succession of immense birds guides all my thinking?

In Scotland, as late as the 18th century, men would send their dogs away on New Year’s morning, caste them out, if you will, by throwing bread and sweetmeats, and shouting: “Get away you dog! Whatever death of men, or loss of cattle, would happen in this house to the end of the present year, may it all light on your head!” 

 

I can’t explain why I like knowing this, except that the experienced dog-in-mind, the canine equivalent of facts, leads inevitably to some questions. How far would a Scotsman have to throw his bread to drive a dog away for a year? Would he have to use a contrivance, a catapult? What sorcery would then disguise his house, and thereby prevent the dog from coming home? Perhaps all superstitious Scotsmen lived in castles with moats and drawbridges? Maybe all the dogs of the common folk were the abandoned dogs of the rich? Or better yet, one pictures the dogs standing outside the pediments, howling–for another superstition held that howling dogs portend death or other calamities.

 

Better a dog by the fire.