"Who Would Hire a Blind Poet?": Blindness in the Eyes of Stephen Kuusisto

Abstract

The trope of blindness has persisted since antiquity in figures like Oedipus, Tiresias, and the hypothetical blind man. Furthermore, colloquial uses of blindness shore up problematic and reductive narratives and expectations about blind individuals. Representing the disabled man thus poses a distinct challenge as it works against hegemonic notions of masculinity and ability. disability—as it is reductively associated with dependency, infirmity, and weakness—contradicts the strength, autonomy, and bodily integrity of stereotypical masculinity. Through close readings of the poetry and memoir of St ephen Kuusisto, a partially blind american poet, the author identifies the double gesture of defamiliarization and refamiliarization in Kuusisto’s representations of blindness and masculinity. Kuusisto carves out a space for the blind man in everyday life by deploying, reworking, and rejecting the problematic constructions of blindness and masculinity.