“I grew up in a nest feathered with words, texts, and books,” Naomi Cohn writes in the first essay of her lyrical debut memoir, The Braille Encyclopedia: Brief Essays on Altered Sight. The entry is titled “Academia” and introduces her parents, academics at the University of Chicago who filled her childhood with “a teeming ocean of words.” From there, in the format of a hybrid encyclopedia, Cohn expands the definitions of words—from Blind to Voice, Code to Zoom—weaving together prose poetry, fragments of memory, the history of Louis Braille, and her experience with gradual, permanent vision loss in adulthood. In its idiosyncratic way, this collection of abecedarian “definitions” amounts to an unforgettable, beautiful meditation on the many facets of blindness, and the act of seeing in a way that goes beyond sight.
The Braille Encyclopedia is the latest entry in an ongoing series of experimental literary works from Rose Metal Press, a nonprofit independent publisher of hybrid genres founded by Abigail Beckel and Chicago author Kathleen Rooney. While all the books they publish defy easy categorization, their roster of authors find new modes of expression and meaning by bending and combining genres into a form all their own.
Cohn’s moving memoir challenges readers to reconsider what they think “blind” means. Early on, she corrects the misconception that most legally blind people have “total blindness,” or complete lack of visual perception; in reality, it is less than 15 percent. In an entry titled “Diagnosis,” she lists many ways people can lose their sight, gradually or all at once. In “Lens,” she marvels at how strong corrective lenses kept her on “the sighted side of the boundary line” for years, but at the same time, contacts meant sometimes crawling on her knees in the bathroom, feeling along the floor for a delicate lens “firmer than a drop of water.” I laughed at this observation, having had the same experience myself on numerous occasions. Like most people with strong corrective lenses, I am considered to have “normal vision” when wearing contacts or glasses—and that is a form of privilege, not having to negotiate my visual impairment on a daily basis. It is also a geographical privilege, Cohn reminds readers, citing a World Health Organization estimate that 800 million people live with impaired daily functioning because they lack access to such corrective devices.
Cohn’s memoir strikes a deft balance throughout, alternating humorous or historic anecdotes with what it feels like to be disabled in America. She recalls the time a cobbler scolded her for wearing down her shoes too quickly, suggesting she slow down. “Quickness with a cane bothers some sighted people,” she writes, noting that she has always walked quickly and, like anyone else, sometimes has many tasks to accomplish (without the use of a car). Cohn shares her frustration at having to advocate for her healthcare, even as she was coming to terms with her diagnosis and completing Adjustment to Blindness Training in her 40s. An entry titled “Cindy” is a poignant tribute to her patient, encouraging braille instructor, who could simultaneously read unique braille texts with each hand.
At the center of this memoir is a love story: how Cohn learned to appreciate the tactile system of braille the way she once loved written words. In a sensory entry combining excerpts of family history with a definition of the common pillbug, she remembers sitting in the backyard with a rolled-up bug in her palm, waiting for it to unfurl “like a braille dot, something closed and round under my finger that—with patience—opens up.” She shares how the texture of a few lines of braille under her fingers at night can sometimes lull her to sleep, how the slow pace of braille helped her to “reclaim sensory pleasure in reading and writing.” The Braille Encyclopedia similarly encourages a slow place, each poetic entry holding a new insight for the reader to discover.
The Braille Encyclopedia is available in bookstores and through the Rose Metal Press website.
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