Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Health & Society
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • |
  • Alumni
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Health & Society

Steve Kuusisto Writes Tribute to Corky, His First Guide Dog

Monday, November 20, 2017, By News Staff
Share
disabilitiesfacultySchool of Education

When poet Stephen Kuusisto decided to train with a guide dog at age 39 he had no idea the decision would change every aspect of his life. “It was amazing to find out what a dog can do,” he says. “That’s why I wanted to describe the experience in a new memoir.” The book, titled “Have Dog, Will Travel: A Poet’s Journey” will be published by Simon & Schuster in March 2018.

Steve Kuusisto with Corky

Steve Kuusisto with Corky

Kuusisto, now a University Professor in Cultural Foundations of Education in the School of Education and a faculty member in the Renee Crown Honors Program, attended college at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, where his father was the president. On that small campus, he was able to memorize how to get to all the places he needed to go.

“In those days I didn’t want people to know how little I could see,” he says, noting it’s not unusual for blind people try to pass as sighted long after their vision has become compromised. After college he attended the Iowa Writer’s Workshop in Iowa City where he painstakingly memorized every step he had to take between his apartment and the creative writing program. “I was steadfast in my denial,” he says, “even to the point of absurdity. I didn’t think anyone would take me seriously if I revealed my disability.”

After earning a graduate degree from the University of Iowa, he returned to Hobart and William Smith to teach, where he continued to maneuver by memory. All was well until, without notice, he lost his job.

Suddenly, he needed a new way to navigate the world. He dug out a pamphlet he had been given from Guiding Eyes for the Blind, a guide-dog school near New York City, and called them.

Kuusisto found that getting a guide dog is a long process. First he had to demonstrate his skills in getting around by himself with a white cane. Then he had to wait months for a spot at the school. And then the real work began. At Guiding Eyes for the Blind he first attended lectures about what a dog can do. After a few days, he was given his own dog—Corky.

In “Have Dog, Will Travel” he recalls the moment he first met Corky like this: “Corky burst in like a clown. I sat in a tall armchair and Kylie [the trainer] told me to call and damned if he didn’t run full steam into my arms. She placed her large front paws on my shoulders and washed my face and then, as if she fully understood her job would require comedy, she nibbled my nose.”

“There have been other books about going to guide dog schools and getting a guide dog,” Kuusisto says, “but it seemed that no one had written a literary book about guide dogs—one where the writer has a degree of self-awareness and irony about his circumstances.” He says many books that have been written about getting a guide dog haven’t dealt with how the process felt on the inside.

He talks about how Corky pushed him to be braver, more accepting and more self-aware—“a more spiritually confident person.” He also talks in the book about how she made him more outgoing because people he encountered were eager to talk about his dog. In one incident he recounts, a diner owner starts a conversation with him about Corky. “This was the life I’d always wanted: being out and about, engaging in casual talk,” Kuusisto says.

“Have Dog, Will Travel” portrays how the process of training for a guide dog and actually incorporating Corky into his life changed Kuusisto in major ways, spiritually and psychologically. It’s not a book he could have written at the time the events happened, Kuusisto says. “I needed to be older and more experienced to write this book.”

  • Author

News Staff

  • Recent
  • University Musicians, West Point Band to Perform Together This Weekend As Part of Events Around Military Appreciation Day
    Friday, September 22, 2023, By Christine Weber
  • Turning Young Enthusiasts Into Scientific Researchers
    Friday, September 22, 2023, By Wendy S. Loughlin
  • Languages Unlock Opportunities for English for Lawyers Alumna
    Thursday, September 21, 2023, By Hope Alvarez
  • Fall 2023 Career Week: Helping Students Achieve Professional Goals
    Thursday, September 21, 2023, By Gabrielle Lake
  • A Commitment to Arts and Sciences Excellence
    Thursday, September 21, 2023, By Dan Bernardi

More In Health & Society

International Drug Policy Academy Offers a Unique Opportunity for Students Interested in Addiction Studies

Needing one more class or an independent study to complete a master’s degree in public health, Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics student Emily Graham turned to Public Health Professor Dessa Bergen-Cico for advice and Bergen-Cico offered the opportunity…

Hendricks Chapel Dean, Chaplains and Students Attend Parliament of the World’s Religions

Representatives from Hendricks Chapel recently attended the Parliament of the World’s Religions, held in August in Chicago. This year’s theme was “A Call to Conscience: Defending Freedom and Human Rights.” More than 7,000 participants from more than 95 countries, representing…

Roundtable: 3 School of Education Alumni Define ‘Human Thriving’ in the Context of Global Diversity

“Human thriving” is among the areas of distinctive excellence enumerated in the University’s 2023 Academic Strategic Plan. This concept is inspired by the words of Chancellor Erastus Haven. In 1871, he charged Syracuse students “to thrive here, to learn here,…

Lerner Center and Maxwell X Lab Join Sheriff’s Office to Reduce Illicit Drugs’ Impact

The Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion and Population Health and Maxwell X Lab have partnered with the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office on an initiative aimed at reducing the impact of opioids and other illicit drugs. The two centers, both…

PAIA Doctoral Student Receives Grant for SNAP Research

Clay Fannin, a doctoral student in the Maxwell School’s Department of Public Administration and International Affairs, has received a $25,000 grant from Tufts University to support his dissertation research on the impacts of COVID-era changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • X
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • @SUCampus
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2023 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.