“A River that No One Can See”: Body, Text, and Environment in the Poetry of Stephen Kuusisto

Drawing from extant critical analyses of the sites of language production and reception, and the relationship of body to language and metaphor, this essay examines the way in which Stephen Kuusisto’s poetry questions held notions of language and embodiment. In examining selections from his book of verse Only Bread, Only Light, as well as his works of non-fiction, the author analyzes Kuusisto’s disruption of the boundaries where communication occurs, and suggests that the poet’s work, by establishing the discursive potential of the non-visual senses, represents a direct challenge to existing artistic and cultural discourse.