Tag Archives: koo is en fuego

Man on Extremely Small Island

17 Dec

Well, this is a special day.  Jason Koo’s first book, which won the 2008 De Novo Prize, came out this week and you can buy it through Amazon.

Since he has a reputation for being something of a rockstar at his readings, my guess is that this book is going to do pretty well in both popular and critical regard.  It’s pretty exciting to hold a bound collection of his poems in your hand, and the Trent-Thibodeux-designed cover is just absolutely sick.

This book really has everything in it.  No, I mean literally:  there’s a hippo, there’s baseball, there’s limousines, there’s baking cookies, there’s sex, there’s text messaging, there are gorgeous lines about “the trees / tossing their heads in the wind like conductors” and “take on the pain of sunlight in your eyes”, there’s highly skilled use of profanity, and everything else.

I’m not alone when I say that this is the poetry you’ve been waiting for.

A Poet Mid-Channel

3 Aug

Picture 083

So, this is what it looks like when a poet moves to a new city in a U-Haul.  That’s roughly 52 boxes of books.   And he’s only in his early thirties….

The Acoustics of Love

4 Mar

Koo and I, sitting on my couch a few nights ago watching poker, began talking about love.

It started when I asked him whether he felt the women that he had dated had “strong personal boundaries”.  The term, which I’ve taken from Dr. Paul’s usage, implies that the woman is capable of standing up for herself, determining what she wants, generally living on her own terms, and not sacrificing her desires and values and standards to those of the people around her.

You’d think we would favor women with strong personal boundaries.  And, frankly, we do.  But the most interesting part of the conversation came when Koo described women he dated who had strong personal boundaries but whose boundary was so strong that it prevented her from fully experiencing him.   She was missing what Koo called “a certain acoustic”, meaning that she lacked the happy, open space inside of her that could be filled with Koo’s life and enthusiasm.  Or, in his glorious phrasing, where he could “reverberate”.

It’s really rare to find a woman (or any person, for that matter) who has a strong personal boundary — and yet whose boundary is permeable enough that we get the pleasure of seeing our own life and influence reverberate around inside of her.

How strong is your personal boundary?  And to what extent does the life of your partner reverberate inside of you?

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