Jason Koo named winner of 2025 Nassar Poetry Prize

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Utica Stories
Jason Koo named winner of 2025 Nassar Poetry Prize

Jason Koo, in beige sweater and orange jacket, smiles at the camera.

The Nassar Poetry Prize is awarded to one Upstate New York poet for their published poetry collection.

The winner of this year’s Eugene Paul Nassar Poetry Prize at Utica University is Jason Koo, with his book, “No Rest.”

“No Rest” is available via independent literary press Diode Editions, which seeks to amply diverse voices and work toward justice and anti-racism in literary publishing.

Beginning the day Koo finds out his best friend from high school died by suicide, “No Rest” explores self-absorption against a backdrop of systemic failures. Koo writes about the feeling of living among a “social fabric / of fabrications” in American life, in which what we think is knowing is not knowing, doing is not doing, being is not being.

Jason Koo is a second-generation Korean American poet. He is the author of four full-length collections of poetry: most recently, “No Rest.” Heis an associate teaching professor of English and director of creative writing at Quinnipiac University and also founder of Brooklyn Poets.

The Nassar Poetry Prize is awarded to one Upstate New York poet for their published poetry collection. The poems must be written in English, and the book must be at least 48 pages long in order to qualify for the $2,000 prize.

The annual contest is named in memory of Eugene Paul Nassar, professor emeritus of English at Utica University, who passed away in April of 2017 at the age of 81.

Jason Koo will read his poetry on Thursday, April 17 at 7:00 p.m. in Wilcox Center on Utica University’s main campus.