Thank Poetry for His Resilience

Written by: Connie Kuusisto

Jodi is host of her blog Reimer Reason and she has volunteered to organize the next Disability Blog Carnival.  She chose "resilience" as her theme and here is what she has to say on the subject matter:  This Thing Called: Resilience. 

In support of Jodi's efforts (putting a blog carnival together takes a lot of time and work) and on behalf of [with]tv, I am submittng the following entry...

(Good luck with the carnival Jodi.  We look forward to it!)

Thank Poetry for His Resilience

I met Steve just after a bout of depression (his) in which he told me he could barely get off his mauve couch.

He was jobless and on food stamps, alone, and after just having been told by an employment counselor that with his disability his chances of finding a job were very slim indeed, he was feeling very blind.  Thank goodness he had good friends in town who helped keep an eye on him. 

It wasn't Steve's first bout of depression.  In his first memoir Planet of the Blind, he talks about being a teenager, depressed, hospitalized, anorexic...then he says, he "discovered poetry".  Always an avid reader (having spent most of his childhood isolated from the main "pack" of "normal" children, he spent his time listening to music and reading books on tape) he knew and loved the power of words, but it was his discovery of poetry that propelled him to recovery.

He applied and was accepted into the famed "Iowa Writer's Workshop" where, studying amongst the best and the brightest, he honed his writing skills.  He returned to upstate New York where he had spent his teen years, obtained a faculty position at a local college, taught and wrote.  While working on his memoir, he faced issues of discrimination and ultimately lost his job (go figure).  That's when he landed on the mauve couch.  Finally, knowing something had to change, he decided to apply for training with a guide dog, against his mother's wishes, by the way.  You'll be a walking advertisement...everyone will know fore sure you're blind.

Steve received guide dog "Corky" at Guiding Eyes for the Blind (where I was managing the admissions program) and trained hard.  A month later he went home with a new found sense of independence and a "girl" to call his own.  With renewed enthusiasm, he went back to work on his book.  A year later he was offered a job at Guiding Eyes, thanks to President and CEO, Mr. Bill Badger.  And thanks to Bill, that's how we met and you know, fell in love. *blush*

Life took a turn for the better for both of us that year.  Two years later, Steve (a bachelor at 40) and I (a single mom) married. Since then he's published two non-fiction books (both memoirs), a book of poetry, numerous articles and essays, and he's returned to teaching.  I'd like to think it was me who made a difference in his life, as he has mine, but I know it's not that simple.  His belief in himself and his talent for writing is what motivates him.  Now a professor at the University of Iowa, he earns his living putting words together and teaching others to do the same.  Ask him what he "does" for a living and his answer is always the same.  It starts with:  "I'm a poet...".

Not too long ago a friend, one of our favorite "bloggers", asked Steve for his opinion on "what is poetry?" and this is what he said...

Oh.  We retired the mauve couch and found it a nice home.  Need I say more?