Stephen Kuusisto

Early life

Stephen Kuusisto was born in March 1955 in Exeter, New Hampshire, where he spent most of his childhood. His father worked as a professor of government at the University of New Hampshire and wanted to study the Cold War, so he moved his family to Helsinki, Finland, from 1958 to 1960. Later in 1963, his father took a job working for New York's governor, Nelson Rockefeller, to improve the state's university system, so the Kuusisto family moved to Albany, New York. He was born three months premature, along with his identical twin brother, who died at one day old. Kuusisto's blindness is a result of a condition called "retinopathy of pre-maturity," where the eyes' retinas do not fully develop in the third trimester of pregnancy. As a result, his retinas were permanently scarred, so he could only "see colors and torn geometries". There were numerous complications because of ROP: nystagmus, also known as, "darting eyes" when the eyes cannot focus, and strabismus or "crossed eyes." At five years old, he underwent multiple eye surgeries to correct his crossed eyes. Kuusisto says that during this recovery "is when [he] learn[ed] to hear," which influenced his 2006 memoir, Eavesdropping: A Memoir of Blindness and Listening. Kuusisto also has a photographic memory.

In rural New Hampshire in the 50s and 60s, he was categorized alongside World War II veterans, as he went unnoticed in society. Additionally, there was no information available during Kuusisto's childhood and adolescence on how to raise blind children. Instead, Kuusisto was taught to "disavow [his blindness]" and attempt to "live like other children" through his kaleidoscope lens. Kuusisto's mother had to "fight with the local district to gain [him] admission to an ordinary first-grade classroom," since it would be "another thirty years before people with disabilities are guaranteed their civil rights in the United States".

College and career

Stephen Kuusisto graduated from Hobart and William Smith Colleges and the Iowa Writers' Workshop and is also a Fulbright Scholar. He became a dual faculty member at the University of Iowa where he taught creative nonfiction in the English Department and also acted as a public humanities scholar at the university's Carver Institute of Macular Degeneration. For years, he has acted as a speaker on education, diversity, public policy and disability. Kuusisto learned to read Braille at the age of thirty-nine and has produced, and continues to produce professional works of poetry and literature.

In his writing career, Stephen wrote a memoir entitled Planet of the Blind (1998) which jump-started his career, landing his poems and essays in such magazines as Harper's, The New York Times Magazine, Partisan Review and other various anthologies. He also made appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Dateline NBC, and BBC. This memoir catalogs the lifelong struggle of societal acceptance as well as personal acceptance of his blindness. Some of his other works include Only Bread, Only Light (2000), a collection of poems that portray the strangely beautiful world of visual imagery and extraordinary yet delicate language.

Letters to Borges, a collection of poems, was published by Copper Canyon Press in 2013. His third memoir, Have Dog, Will Travel: A Poet's Journey, was published by Simon & Schuster in 2018. He also founded Kaleidoscope Connections LLC with his wife Connie, which helps to raise awareness of disability.

He is currently University Professor at Syracuse University, New York, where he teaches poetry and creative non-fiction. In addition, he directs the Interdisciplinary Programs and Outreach Initiative at the university's Burton Blatt Institute.