A Natural History: Jason Koo
10/03/2010A Natural History of My Name
By Jason Koo
Today I read that only 2.2%
–—-out of a million first and last names
have a higher vowel than consonant
—–ratio, and, since 50% of the letters
in my name are vowels, this means
—–I am “extremely well-envoweled.”
I go outside strutting the bulge
—–in my name: the trees are wowed
by my vowels, they only have two e’s,
—–which is why they have no leaves
at this time of year: the snow must submit
—–to the scrunch of my boots,
snow only has one o and I have three,
—–even my boots, so tough and rugged,
clearly dominating the one-o’d
—–snow, must bow down to the deity
of me, with three, never raising
—–themselves higher than my feet:
—–
I cross the bridge and it is the same,
—–the river cannot keep up
with me, look at it writhing in the ice,
—–so fearsome with its 66.6%
vowel-to-consonant ratio but not
—–intimidating to me, because ice,
if you’ll notice, slides on its c,
—–eventually skidding to a stop
like a hockey player before the puck
—–of the e: which in a flick
disappears: whereas I keep floating out
—–on my opening of o’s, the song
of my name is repeated through nature,
—–cuckoos and owls take pleasure
in perpetuating it, just one koo
—–is never enough for them, koo
must always come coupling
—–
—–through their throats: you can hear
this song taken up by schoolchildren,
—–I used to hear it all the time,
I thought kids were taunting me but
—–now I know they were just jealous
of my o’s: they saw these heaped
—–in their bowls of canned
spaghetti and cereal, but no matter
—–how many spoonfuls they jammed
in their mouths, no matter how
—–many more muscles they grew
than me, they never grew any
—–more richly envoweled: this was just
something you had to be born with,
—–a natural advantage of hailing
from a family that came from a tiny
—–Pacific peninsula whupped
by other countries: our name shed
—–contours of consonants
to slip past detection, shape-shifting
—–into other words like a
syllable chameleon, from haiku to coup
—–d’etat matching colonial culture
and upheaval, so when I hear Hi, Koo
—–
—–today followed by a giggle, the laugh
is not on me but on the oppressors,
—–whose whole poetic tradition
gets cheerfully wiped out by my arrival.
*
Jason Koo used to be called ‘d’etat’, for short, in high school. Among other less cool things.
*
Notes:
“A Natural History of My Name” is part of the Natural Histories Project. Click here to learn more >>
Jason Koo is the author of Man on Extremely Small Island, winner of the 2008 De Novo Poetry Prize (C&R Press, 2009). The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Vermont Studio Center, he has published his poetry and prose in numerous journals, including The Yale Review, North American Review and The Missouri Review. He teaches at NYU and Lehman College and serves as Poetry Editor of Low Rent. He lives in Brooklyn with his cat, Django.
[…] Jason Koo wrote “A Natural History of My Name” […]
by A Natural History of My ____________ « The Owls 10/03/2010 at 12:59