Description

Book Synopsis

"[Kuusisto] is a powerful writer with a musical ear for language and a gift for emotional candor."—The New York Times

"A talented writer judged against any standard."—USA Today

Best-selling memoirist Stephen Kuusisto uses the themes of travel, place, religion, music, art, and loneliness to explore the relationship between seeing, blindness, and being. In poems addressed to Jorge Luis Borges—another poet who lived with blindness—Kuusisto leverages seeing as negative capability, creating intimacy with deep imagination and uncommon perceptions.

"Alone"

Today I understood
While drinking tea
& hearing rain
That the word for birth
& the one for sin
Come from a single root
In Finnish — that tongue they
Spoke when I was small.
Synnty, untranslatable,
Original sin nearly,
But softer,
Like water
Carried a long way
In a jar
In May.

Stephen Kuusisto is a poet, essayist, and memoirist. He is the author of two collections of poetry and two memoirs, including the best-selling Planet of the Blind (W. W. Norton & Company, 1998). A graduate from and former teacher at the Iowa Writers'' Workshop, Kuusisto now teaches at Syracuse University in New York State.


Letters to Borges

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    A Paperback / softback by Stephen Kuusisto

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      Book details

      Publisher Copper Canyon Press,U.S.
      Published 11 April 2013
      ISBN-13 9781556593864
      978-1556593864
      ISBN-10 1556593864

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      "[Kuusisto] is a powerful writer with a musical ear for language and a gift for emotional candor."—The New York Times

      "A talented writer judged against any standard."—USA Today

      Best-selling memoirist Stephen Kuusisto uses the themes of travel, place, religion, music, art, and loneliness to explore the relationship between seeing, blindness, and being. In poems addressed to Jorge Luis Borges—another poet who lived with blindness—Kuusisto leverages seeing as negative capability, creating intimacy with deep imagination and uncommon perceptions.

      "Alone"

      Today I understood
      While drinking tea
      & hearing rain
      That the word for birth
      & the one for sin
      Come from a single root
      In Finnish — that tongue they
      Spoke when I was small.
      Synnty, untranslatable,
      Original sin nearly,
      But softer,
      Like water
      Carried a long way
      In a jar
      In May.

      Stephen Kuusisto is a poet, essayist, and memoirist. He is the author of two collections of poetry and two memoirs, including the best-selling Planet of the Blind (W. W. Norton & Company, 1998). A graduate from and former teacher at the Iowa Writers'' Workshop, Kuusisto now teaches at Syracuse University in New York State.


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