My Modest Blindness - Russell Brakefield

In his late twenties, poet Russell Brakefield is diagnosed with keratoconus, a degenerative eye condition that causes blurred vision, light sensitivity, and progressive loss of sight. In the years after, his condition worsens. In My Modest Blindness , he traverses this blurry landscape, drawing connections to art, literature, natural history, and pop culture. Part celebration and part lament, this book uses a sustained conversation with Jorge Luis Borges's famous lecture On Blindness, as well as a catalogue of delights of the visual world in the moments just before it leaves, to examine what it means to be a writer and a person slowly losing his ability to see.