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Only Bread, Only Light
by Stephen Kuusisto, Copper Canyon Press, 2000 $14.00

Corky & Kuusisto

There is a kind of clarity of thought that seems to take shape in the dark hours, which could explain why so many writers prefer the night for writing. Darkness calls up a longing, a strange quietude within us, as if we were waking to a deeper appreciation of ideas that are lost during the daily routine of work and demands. Kuusisto's poems evoke that dark and silent clarity again and again.

Stephen Kuusisto's poems are written from the light of darkness. The painting on the cover of his book of poems, Only Bread, Only Light, is Max Beckmann's Still Life with Fallen Candles, 1929. We can gather that the two fallen candles represent blindness. Kuusisto was born prematurely and consequently, his retinas were scarred, leaving him fractionally sighted. He has written, "I see like a person who looks through a kaleidoscope, my impressions of the world are at once beautiful and largely useless." What I find interesting in Beckmann's painting is that there are two candles, which have fallen on the table, and two left standing. To me, those two standing candles represent Imagination and Intelligence.

In a way, Kuusisto's disability has blessed him with the power of curiosity to see what most of us miss. You could argue that his senses overcompensate for the loss of physical sight, that his sensual experiences are heightened or intensified. True enough, given the startling details of tangible things in his poetry. It is amazing how Kuusisto can visualize these things! How can he describe houses, objects, landscapes, trees, streets, and above all else, the seasonal moods of light with such clarity!? Overcompensation cannot explain Kuusisto's visionary gift, which has more to do with gnosis or "insight".

At times the blind see light,
And that moment is the Sistine ceiling,

Grace among buildings—no one asks
For it, no one asks.

After all, this is solitude,
Daylight's finger,

Blake's angel
Parting willow leaves.

I should know better.
Get with the business

Of walking the lovely, satisfied,
Indifferent weather—

Bread baking
On Arthur Avenue

This first warm day of June.
I stand on the corner

For priceless seconds.
Now everything to me falls shadow.

"Only Bread, Only Light"



"Only Bread, Only Light", the title poem of Kuusisto's book, is punctuated with paradoxical images. I especially love the way he shifts from the paradisiacal to the transitory, from the Cistine heavens to indifferent weather. That Blake should be this poet's Guide is quite telling—since Blake was the Master of Visionary revelation, visions that paid homage to the Particular. Kuusisto also worships the particular: the willows, the leaves, the buildings, and the scent of bread baking on Arthur Avenue. Bread not only carries the Gnostic message of spiritual sustenance, it also symbolizes the simple pleasures of the earth.

In an advertisement from the Paris bakery, Poilâne, the owner included this little story by an American traveler. It seems to echo Stephen Kuusisto's passion for the small or ordinary pleasures that we often take for granted: "It was 7 o'clock in the evening and an elegant man was walking along. In his left hand, he was holding a bouquet of flowers and under his right arm, a round, crusty country loaf of bread. " Someone else added, "There you go: Without a decent loaf of bread under his arm, that man would have been just another poor wretch."

In "Summer at North Farm" an old Finnish, rural lifestyle is summoned from Kuusisto's imagination. Kuusisto spent his childhood years in Helsinki, Finland. Consider the vivid imagery and lyrical surprises in this poem, how it captures a time period, much like a still life painting.


Fires, always fires after midnight,
The sun depending in the purple birches

And gleaming like a copper kettle.
By the solstice they'd burned everything,

The bad-luck sleigh, a twisted rocker,
Things "possessed" and not quite right.

The bonfire coils and lurches,
Big as a house, and then it settles.

The dancers come, dressed like rainbows
(If rainbows could be spun),

and linking hands they turn
to the melancholy fiddles.

A red bird spreads its wings now
And in the darker days to come.


At the same time, Kuusisto has his moments of frustration that are characterized with humor and irony. He is immersed in life—not removed from it. In "Accomplice", the poet plays on the irony of "who is watching whom" and how he identifies with the magpie.

It was in the nature of things
That I couldn't see. The nature of things
That the magpie should watch me.

Perpetual strangers
Touch my sleeves,
The steel light of August

Draws me, affirming
Over brilliant and terrible streets,
And the bird looks on—

You'd swear
He's like those wounded gentlemen
From the First World War,

Watchful, innocent,
Hoarding his words
In case someone is lost.


Notice the quiet precision in Kuusisto's poems. They remind me of Li Po and Tu Fu's poetry: stark, classical, and beautifully austere. Kuusisto has written in his best-selling memoir, Planet of the Blind, which was named a Notable Book of the Year by the New York Times, that the culture may be the biggest barrier faced by a disabled person. "Perpetual strangers / Touch my sleeves…" Streets are in fact both beautiful and terrifying. Kuusisto explained in an interview with <Boldtype>: "My version of vision is "reactive: odd shapes large and small come flying at me and I can't identify or classify them…it can be beautiful or frightening. It's analogous to an LSD trip, save that it's permanent."

There are so many exquisite poems that make up this book that it's very hard to be selective, but I cannot possibly close this review without mentioning Mr. Kuusisto's dearest friend and divine being, Corky, Kuusisto's guide dog. (see photo) After getting Corky, Kuusisto's life was transformed. "Obviously having such a loyal and strong companion at your side is a profound life-affirming force. Corky is a form of divine energy—and as William Blake said, 'Energy is eternal delight.' Corky gives me the freedom to travel safely. Because of her I have the greatest independence and broader horizons. Last week, while Corky and I were visiting Chicago, she pulled me back from a car that had run a red light on Michigan Avenue. We were half way across the intersection when Corky yanked me back from certain death." (Boldtype interview). Click here to read the entire poem, "Guiding Eyes":

Guiding Eyes

It's been five years
Since I was paired with this dog
Who, in fact is more than a dog—
She watches for me.

…

A blessing opens by degrees
And I must walk
Both bodily and ghostly
Down Fifth Avenue,
Increasing my devotion full much
To the postulate of arrival—
To how I love this inexhaustible dog
Who leads me
Past jackhammers
And the police barriers
Of New York.

…


Only Bread, Only Light is a book you'll want to keep close at hand. The minute you open to any one of these gorgeous poems, you'll remember those rare and unspeakable moments of clarity. Is it not ironic to think that it may take a blind poet to lead us straight into the light, who teaches us how to appreciate the sensual beauty of nature? And although this is a book about loss and longing, Kuusisto transforms his loss into Bach partitas. Just the titles, alone, give you an idea of Kuusisto's versatility on subject matters: "Dante's Paradiso Read Poorly in Braille"; "Mandelstam"; "At the Woods' Edge"; "Praise for the Yiddish Poets"; "Rachmanifoff's Curtains"; "Ode to My Sleeping Pills"; "The Mockingbird on Central" and so on.

I'm reminded of a Zen story about a young boy who asks his blind Master, "Master? How is it that you can you see these things?" And the Master answered, "How is it that you cannot? Do you not see the grasshopper on your foot just now?