Koo, Jason: No Rest

Diode Editions, paperback Publication Date: May 15, 2024 Publisher Marketing: What do we truly know? Are we deceiving ourselves when we think we know ourselves or the world? Jason Koo's No Rest, a winner of the Diode Editions Book Contest, pursues these questions through a series of long poems like essays in verse that demonstrate the elusiveness of any answers even as they keep up the pursuit. The book begins on the day after the 2016 presidential election, when Koo discovers that his best friend from high school has killed himself by throwing himself in front of a train. The year he thought would be the best of his life—because of the unexpected joy of meeting his future wife and seeing his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers win the city's first championship since 1964—turns out to be just another triumph of his own self-absorption. The book then returns to the start of 2016, unfolding along two arcs: one to the poet's fortieth birthday that August, the other spanning the next four years