Have Dog, Will Travel

November 6, 2017
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.

November 1, 2017

"It's not as dark as you think," says poet/memoirist Kuusisto's website, highlighting his Planet of the Blind, a New York Times Notable Book. Though unable to see from birth, Kuusisto never had a guide dog until age 38, when a yellow lab named Corky arrived in his life and changed it entirely. A celebration of Corky and guide dogs everywhere.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2017
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.

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February 15, 2018
Kuusisto adds to his growing collection of memoirs and poetryincluding Planet of the Blind (1998) and Letters to Borges (2013)with this irresistible portrait of his first guide dog, Corky, a large-headedand even larger-heartedyellow 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 worldand what a deeply compassionate, beautifully observed world it is.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)