Annotation: The Kindness of the Blind

As a kind of paradigm for the cross-cultural encounter, this poem belongs as well in our final Unit, Medicine and Society. But it also explores the patient experience from two perspectives, from the observer’s perspective and from the patient’s perspective. Here, the observer is the poet, but the poet could easily be the health care professional. Similarly, the blind audience is not really a patient, but it readily represents the patient’s perspective. Interestingly enough, the realization that what has been prepared for the ‘patient’—a poetry reading—may be unsuitable, doesn’t occur to the person reading until in the very midst of doing so. “A poet is reading to the blind.” Did it not occur to the poet beforehand that the material might be unsuitable? Hence the statements about it being too late to stop and passing over not being an option. So often we are oblivious in this way, making assumptions about the abilities of other to understand and perform.

So what the poet discovers is that his poetry is full of visual images, and he suddenly realizes that these images may be inaccessible to someone without sight. He proceeds to find visual elements in everything he reads. In this sense too, ‘passing over’ is not an option, because otherwise there would be no poem to read. Images, after all, are an essential component of poetry. So he continues, and one senses his chagrin and embarrassment as he proceeds through all the images.

The poem takes a turn when ‘kindness,’ ‘compassion,’ and ‘generosity’ are ascribed to the blind. These are characteristics we ascribe to a caregiver. Here, the recipient/patient is the one doing the caregiving. Certainly, smiling, clapping and asking for an autograph are social conventions, but one senses there is more here. One might interpret the ‘kindness’ as meaning that the blind person(s) have come to terms with their disability, and are used to dealing with people who don’t know what it is like for them. One might interpret it as meaning that they have their own sort of ‘vision’ that ultimately lets them understand the images that the poet thinks are out of their reach. In any case, the gentle response of the blind audience shows that the experience of illness is not always a negative, but can illustrate wisdom and forbearance in the presence of ignorant others. This realization is incorporated into the poem and hints at the possibility of poetry as a means of bridging the knowledge and communication gap between human being. The two components of poetry are the language of images and the empathic understanding that derives from the encounter described.