Exploring Senses and Sensation
Stephen Kuusisto and Maxine Beach Reading Kicks Off First Night of Carnival ah!
By Chelsea Biondolillo
On April 2, 2009 Austin Community College’s Arts and Humanities Division and Creative Writing Department will host an evening of readings from two writers, Stephen Kuusisto and Maxine Beach, who are pushing boundaries in new and exciting directions. The reading, part of ACC’s Carnival ah! celebration, will begin at 7 pm at the Rio Grande Campus Main Stage Theater.
Stephen Kuusisto has been almost completely blind since birth. He has written several books on his experiences in a world rich in four senses. His first book of prose, the memoir, The Planet of the Blind was a New York Times “Notable Book of the Year.” His work has been described as having a “lucid candor” (W.S. Merwin), and “full of felicitous surprises” (Leah Hager Cohen).
This blindness of mine still allows me to see colors and shapes that seem windblown; the great terminal is supremely lovely in its swaying hemlock darknesses and sudden pools of rose-colored electric light. We don’t know where we are, and though the world is dangerous, it’s also haunting in its beauty. Even to a lost man with a speck of something like seeing, this minute here, just standing, taking in the air as a living circus, this is what tears of joy are for.
Planet of the Blind, Stephen Kuusisto
Kuusisto’s writing has appeared in many publications, including Harpers, The New York Times Magazine, Poetry, The Bark, and Partisan Review. He has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Dateline NBC, and NPR’s Talk of the Nation, and speaks widely on topics including public policy, disability, and diversity.
Elva Maxine Beach’s most recent work Neurotica includes erotic poems and stories in the self-described style of “psyche-sexual drama.” In a recent review, Todd Rohman (assistant professor, English, St. Louis Community College), points out, ”Concentrating only (not merely) on sex in the novel would miss its significance as a fresh contemplation on aging, loss and the complex contours of gender. The work asks us to consider the impossibility of merging two separate beings through love, but suggests that ceasing the search would be ceasing to be human.”
A strange sensation surged throughout my body. My impulse to pee vanished. My awareness that I was sitting between Mom and Pop in the middle of Sunday evening service vanished. I heard nothing, felt nothing, knew nothing except for this one moment. My entire body convulsed. And then, I was back, I was shivering, awake, aware. Confused. Satisfied. Happy. Anointed.
‘Can I Get a Hallelujah?’ Neurotica, Maxine Beach
Beach has an MFA in creative writing from Louisiana State University and has supported her writing habit with jobs ranging from car hop to critic. She is a former Austin Community College professor and currently teaches writing and encourages mindful hedonism in St. Louis.
The reading is free and is open to the public. Both authors will have books available for sale, and light refreshments will be served.
