Monday, March 17, 2008

Another Link

Double meaning intended. One of the topics I often read about is blindness. Last fall, I saw a book by Stephen Kuusisto, a professor at the University of Iowa. The title grabbed my attention -- Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening. He is a poet, and to me, poetry is like GrapeNuts. I can only partake of it in small batches, and it takes a long time to chew. But, the batches I read were very interesting, and I mulled over each of them for days before reading the next one.

Mr. Kuusisto also writes a blog, and he recently posted a link to an op-ed piece he wrote for the New York Times regarding the new governor of New York. This reads so well, so easily, that I wanted to share it with others. In my humble opinion, it's an excellent but succinct introduction to the world of blindness. Please give it a read and tell me what impresses you.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/14/opinion/14kuusisto.html?_r=2&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

3 comments:

Sheryl said...

Wow, a great column. I find I am lazy at remembering, because I know I can recall the important things through photos, e-mails, etc. Perhaps I could improve my memory by "losing" my sight for a day or two. Thanks for calling my attention to this. Sheryl

Katharine said...

Good point, Sheryl. I tried playing cribbage with Braille cards once. Reading the cards one by one, then committing them to memory, was tough. Other noise in the room (conversations) thoroughly distracted me, and I couldn't keep track of what cards I held -- much less, recall what my opponent had played from his hand. I felt like a memory-wuss!

Unknown said...

Hi Katharine!
I'm really enjoying reading all your blogs about the big library move.
And I love your poetry is like Grape nuts analogy, I wrote it down so I'll remember it when I have to take poetry classes ;-)