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Summary
Summary
In a lyrical love letter to guide dogs everywhere, a blind poet shares his delightful story of how a guide dog changed his life and helped him discover a newfound appreciation for travel and independence.
Stephen Kuusisto was born legally blind--but he was also raised in the 1950s and taught to deny his blindness in order to "pass" as sighted. Stephen attended public school, rode a bike, and read books pressed right up against his nose. As an adult, he coped with his limited vision by becoming a professor in a small college town, memorizing routes for all of the places he needed to be. Then, at the age of 38, he was laid off. With no other job opportunities in his vicinity, he would have to travel to find work.
This is how he found himself at Guiding Eyes paired with a Labrador named Corky. In this vivid and lyrical memoir, Stephen Kuusisto recounts how an incredible partnership with a guide dog changed his life and the heart-stopping, wondrous adventure that began for him in midlife. Profound and deeply moving, this is a spiritual journey, the story of discovering that life with a guide dog is both a method and a state of mind.
Author Notes
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 professorship in the Center on Human Policy, Law, and Disability Studies. He is a frequent speaker in the US and abroad. His website is StephenKuusisto.com.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Poet and memoirist Kuusisto (Eaves- dropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening) again addresses his experiences as a blind person, this time sweetly recounting his life with Corky, his first guide dog, who "burst in like a clown" when he met her. They connected instantly, to Kuusisto's surprise and delight. Kuusisto was amazed at how different life became with a dog at his side, and his newfound mobility and confidence eventually led to a job traveling around the country educating audiences about blindness and the role of guide dogs. Day-to-day, Corky attracted attention from children and people on the street. Once, Kuusisto walked into a barbershop in upstate New York and was met with silence, which Kuusisto initially assumed was a response to his disability ("Disability scares some folks"). But it turned out that the men in the shop were Korean War veterans and that the sight of Corky stirred memories for them of a friend who got a seeing-eye dog after he was blinded in the war. Kuusisto laces the book with these type of encounters to give readers and animal lovers terrific insight into not only his experience with blindness, but also the unshakable bond between a guide dog and its owner. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A poet/memoirist's account of how he bonded with his first guide dog.Kuusisto (Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening, 2006, etc.) was born with exceptionally poor vision. However, because his mother and father believed he would have no future if he presented as blind, they "forcefully encouraged me to do absolutely everything sighted children did." He went to school, attended college, and became a professor, all without learning Braille. But his world was also extremely circumscribed: the one thing he could not manage was travel outside of his small town. "I was a second rate traveler who didn't know how to go places independently," he writes. When, at age 38, he lost his teaching job, Kuusisto was forced to reckon with circumstances that demanded he change not only his lifestyle, but also his attitude toward being physically imperfect. His path led him to Guiding Eyes for the Blind, an organization that helps visually impaired people become more mobile by using guide dogs. The author began training with a "brilliant and silly" yellow Labrador named Corky, who had "the most comprehending face I'd ever met." Over the span of a few months, he learned how to control Corky and feel the "dog-man confidence" that allowed him to move through public spaces with her. At the same time, Corky also forced Kuusisto to come face to face with a suppressed part of his identity. Gradually, he integrated the stubborn survivor he was with the new, "more refined man of the street" able to navigate urban mazes like New York City with ease. Most significantly, the author was able to leave behind the disability prejudices he had inherited from his parents and honor his own right to live an authentic life free of guilt and shame for being "deficient." Kuusisto tells the poignant story of a midlife rebirth that led to self-acceptance and also celebrates human/animal interdependence and a "companionship [that] was intimate and richer than poems."An eloquent and heartwarming memoir. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Kuusisto adds to his growing collection of memoirs and poetry including Planet of the Blind (1998) and Letters to Borges (2013) with this irresistible portrait of his first guide dog, Corky, a large-headed and even larger-hearted yellow Labrador. Born to strict parents decades before the enactment of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Kuusisto spent the first 38 years of his life concealing his blindness, honing various mnemonic devices (such as counting steps) or sharply tracking shifts in light and color. But after abruptly losing his professorship at a New York liberal-arts college, he resolved to learn how to walk in a larger world. Enter Corky and a fateful trip to Guiding Eyes for the Blind. Trotting alongside Kuusisto and Corky from Ithaca to the bustling streets of Manhattan, readers discover much about the training, history, and reception of the guide dog. All the while, Kuusisto's ever-lyrical writing pulses with lush imagery and unflagging curiosity. There's no doubt: Kuusisto's love for Corky, and love itself, become a filter through which to perceive the world and what a deeply compassionate, beautifully observed world it is.--Shemroske, Briana Copyright 2018 Booklist
Excerpts
Excerpts
Have Dog, Will Travel Prologue People ask: "What's it like?" "What's it like walking with a guide dog?" "How does a dog keep you from harm?" Or they say, "I don't think I could do that, I mean, what's it really like to trust a dog that way?" Truthfully it's not like anything else. There's no true equivalent for the experience. My wife is an equestrian. Years ago she was a guide-dog trainer. "On a horse," she says, "you're hypervigilant, aiming to avoid accidents by controlling your animal. Sometimes you and your horse will find a meditative rhythm. But you can't count on horses to look out for you." A guide dog is not like a horse. She looks out for you. All the time. What's it like? I can only help you imagine what a guide dog feels like. Say you're in Italy in a swirl of motorbikes. It's Milan with thin sidewalks, confusing street crossings, and barbaric drivers. Montenapoleone Street is crowded with what seems like all the people in the world. Let's say you're walking at night to the Duomo with Guiding Eyes "Corky" #3cc92. Corky does her thing and relishes her job. She pulls you along but the pull is steady and you feel like you're floating. Her mind and body transmit through a harness an omnidirectional confidence. Why are you going to Milan's famous cathedral with a dog? One of your favorite books is Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad, which contains passages so beautiful you sometimes recite them aloud. Of the Duomo Twain says it has "a delusion of frostwork that might vanish with a breath! . . . The central one of its five great doors is bordered with a bas-relief of birds and fruits and beasts and insects, which have been so ingeniously carved out of the marble that they seem like living creatures--and the figures are so numerous and the design so complex, that one might study it a week without exhausting its interest . . ." Now it's just you and your dog. You're going there to touch the birds and fruits and beasts and insects carved from marble. Not only are the streets teeming with people, there are skateboarders. Now your Labrador eases left. You hear a clatter of wheels. You think how Milan must be dangerous for skateboarding with its jagged paving bricks, broken sidewalks, and Vespas like runaway donkeys. Motorbikes plunge through crowds. Someone does a dance with death every twenty feet. The city is a fantastic, ghastly place. In the midst of this your dog is unflappable. Trained to estimate your combined width, she looks for advantages in the throng and pulls ahead because the way is clear or she slows suddenly because an elderly woman has drifted sideways into your path. Sometimes she stops on a dime, refusing to move. Which she does now. There's a hole in the pavement. It's unmarked--there are no pylons or signs. A stranger says it's remarkable there aren't a dozen people at the bottom of the thing. Corky has saved you from breaking your neck. She backs away, turns, then pushes ahead. It doesn't feel like driving a car. It's not like running. Sometimes I think it's a bit like swimming. A really long swim when you're buoyant and fast. There's no one else in the pool. Yes, this is sort of what it's like, but there's something else--a keen affection between you and your dog, a mutual discernment. Together you've got the other's back. Excerpted from Have Dog, Will Travel: A Poet's Journey with an Exceptional Labrador by Stephen Kuusisto All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
