Tag: The World I Live In

Contemplating the Many Things Worse than Being Blind at the Helen Keller Forest Hills Tribute Mural

Thanks to a wonderful writer friend, Jess DeCourcy Hinds, I learned about The Helen Keller Forest Hills Tribute Mural in Queens, New York, where Keller lived for many years. Sadly, Keller’s home no longer exists. In its place stands the Reform Temple of Forest Hills at 71-11 112th Street, which was formerly 93 Seminole Avenue. That’s “where Helen Keller resided… Read more

INWARD VISIONS: Helen Keller Defends her Sense of Beauty

[These thoughts on aesthetics, understanding, poetry, beauty and the senses come from Keller’s 1908 book The World I Live In. “Inward Visions” is Chapter 9. You can read Chapter 6 on Smell HERE. The text has been hyperlinked, gently edited for apparent scanning errors and the odd British spellings Americanized.] ACCORDING to all art, all nature, all coherent human thought,… Read more

Helen Keller on Smell, The Fallen Angel

[“SMELL, THE FALLEN ANGEL” is Chapter SIX of The World I Live In (originally published in 1908), a magnificent book that tells of sensations beyond seeing and hearing. It is also the book from which I took the heartbreaking preface that ends Helen Keller Tries To Tell You Her Story. This has been gently edited for apparent scanning errors and… Read more

Helen Keller Tries To Tell You Her Story (Despite Your Helen Keller Jokes)

On to the black stage she steps. You believe you hear her cane tap tapping, then stop. Papers rustle. Suddenly you are blinded by a brilliant light. The light, emanating from a lamp on her head like that of a miner, creates dark smudges of her facial features. Under the brilliant light and shadow face, you see what appears to… Read more