Review of KADIAN by Jordan Castro

Jordan Castro has another chapbook out, this time on Hip Hip Hooray Press.

In previous books, Jordan Castro seemed to address issues in a more roundabout way.  

His poetry often seemed to have a repetitive, meditative quality to them, where different shades of an idea built upon one another.  

The meditative quality is still there, but now he is cutting right to the core of the ideas at hand. 

There is a fresh brevity to these poems.  

One of my favorite poems in this chapbook, "Without Drugs I am Nothing", has the repetitive quality to it, but I still like it.

I agree with Noah Cicero that this book has a Rimbaud feel to it.

"Constant Disappointment to the People I Love" is another one of my favorites in this series. You can hear Jordan reading it over the trailer to the book here.

I feel Jordan's voice, or the aspects that I like of it the most, are most present in "Only Writing This Poem To Distract Myself From Thinking About How Shitty Of A Friend/Person I Am."  

The poem itself is shorter than the title. It has a "tweet" vibe to it, like many of the things in the chapbook, although maybe that is retarded to say.

"C-Notes" is probably the funniest poem in the collection. It is about the author/narrator/Jordan sitting in a building and hearing C notes from different locations.  It is probably shorter than my description of it, and my description of it does not do it justice.

One poem is about Mad Men. I love Mad Men!

Jordan Castro does a great job with these poems. 

Reading Kadian is like reading a decadent poet write poems in an era where crunk and Twitter exist, and being good at doing it. 

("Turnt Up, Turnt Out" is a good example of this, and is another reason you should buy it)

The second to last poem is similar in tone to the poem that Jordan reads over the trailer. I liked it a lot, too.

The last poem is Jordan going in to even more new territory, filled with caps locks and exclamation marks.   It can be read on Matt Margo's lit blog Cormac McCarthy's Dead Typewriter.  I also just realized another poem from this collection is one there too, although I am not going to say which one, although i don't know why I am not going to say.

I also highly recommend his solo musical mixtape that came out this winter.  The lyrics and poetry in it is similar in many ways to this chapbook.  

I hung out with Jordan over Christmas when I was home in Ohio.  It was the second time I had hung out with while being home for Christmas (this year and last year, respectively). He is way chill. I am glad he wrote this, and glad I read it.