This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.
12/11/2024 08:30 AMOne of Quinnipiac University’s own faculty, Jason Koo, was lauded this year as one of Connecticut’s finest writers, being selected as the Connecticut Poetry Circuit Poet for 2024.
The circuit has a 60-year history of honoring writers and engagement with the public through poetry and sees Jason joining the company of names that include Pulitzer Prize winners and National Book Award finalists.
“To be named the Connecticut Circuit Poet is a real honor because I know of the tradition of,” says Jason. “Knowing of the poets that have been named - the circuit poets - over the last several decades have been some of the biggest names in American poetry…to see my name in that company is pretty amazing. I don't think I ever thought that I would see my name in that kind of list of poets.”
As the circuit poet, Jason will tour different colleges around the state, giving talks and leading poetry readings and workshops, celebrating and continuing the legacy of the circuit’s celebration of Connecticut poets.
Jason’s recognition by the circuit was partly for his book No Rest, which was released earlier this year. The book consists of lengthy essay-like poems, “a style that I've leaned into more and more over the years,” he says.
A decidedly different style than shorter prose and sonnets commonly found in many poetry books, Jason says a longer form of poetic expression is more suitable to “capture consciousness and the way the mind moves.”
“I don’t think that short lyric poems really capture the ‘self’ in the same way because it’s such a shifting, ultimately mysterious thing,” he says. “I think long poems are a better, truer reflection of what this thing we call the self really is. I've leaned into that in a way that I think most authentically captures my voice and style.”
As a poet and professor of creative writing and English at Quinnipiac, a primary driving factor for Jason’s teaching has been to represent the underrepresented voices in poetry. This means highlighting the works of authors who come from a diverse range of backgrounds, from racial and ethnic backgrounds, sexuality and gender, and even age and class.
Jason understands the importance of highlighting writers who have been historically underrepresented in the American canon of poetry. From a personal standpoint, he has learned he is the first Asian-American writer to be selected as the state’s circuit poet and one of the very few Korean-American men to have published a book of poems in the United States.
“That number is almost terrifyingly small, and it makes your experience very lonely,” he says. “Being on the East Coast in academia, it’s even more scarce because most of those poets are either on the West Coast or in other parts of the country.”
Informed by that experience, Jason says it has “fueled my drive even more to do whatever I can” to feature diverse voices in the poetry landscape. This drive is realized in a reading series he co-started at Quinnipiac featuring authors of various backgrounds and life experiences.
This mission of representing the underrepresented carries over into his platform, Brooklyn Poets, which was named after the neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights for its literary history. When Jason began thinking of the platform in 2012, he saw that “there was nothing in Brooklyn that specifically celebrated the history of poetic excellence” in the borough, “even though everyone knew of Brooklyn as this kind of literary capital,” he says.
With this platform, Jason has been able to forward and celebrate the borough’s literary history in the contemporary era with the intention of featuring a more inclusive community of writers.
“I think what’s given me the most pride about that org[anization] is all the different kinds of people coming in and feeling like they could write poems and they could read in our open mic and not be judged,” he says.
Now entering his 13th year at Quinnipiac, Jason continues to teach creative writing and poetry classes, introducing students to a range of poetic forms and encouraging their literary creativity to blossom. Unexpectedly, many of Jason’s students are not English majors, for example, but are students majoring in business and STEM fields who are “interested in creative expression.”
He says he has noticed a “predominant shift” in the subject matter students write about, specifically focusing on mental health.
“This is part of a general trend in the United States,” Jason says. “I think with more awareness about mental health issues has come more awareness within each individual about things they’re dealing with in their experience.”