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Unorganized Thoughts in Response to Jordan Castro’s KADIAN

by Matt Margo

KADIAN
Jordan Castro
Hip Hip Hooray Press, February 2012
Buy from Animal Sorrow

KADIAN is a morphine sulfate extended-release capsule.
KADIAN is intended to alleviate your pain.
KADIAN can easily lead to an overdose if chewed, crushed, dissolved, snorted, or injected in excess.
KADIAN, Jordan Castro’s poetry chapbook published by Hip Hip Hooray Press, explores the human condition with regards to release, pain, excess, and longing.

It is composed of twelve notably minimalist poems, most of which are no longer than 3-5 lines, that each manage to communicate a special sort of honesty through the approach of brevity.
This honesty is not solely personal, although there is a great deal of the self to be found within such meta-narratives as ONLY WRITING THIS POEM TO DISTRACT MYSELF FROM THINKING ABOUT HOW SHITTY OF A FRIEND/PERSON I AM.
More deeply, and more importantly, it is an honesty toward the notion of destruction, toward a desire for its prevention.

The voice of this poetry is as reflective as it is instructive, and as helpless as it is hopeful.
There are recurring themes of addiction, self-loathing, and regret, and they are observed from the perspective of both he who is victimized and he who refuses to remain a victim.
As Castro’s words discern, we may recognize our faults as human beings, we may “wear [our] hangover on [our] chest like a chain,” but we must not allow ourselves to become confined to that which encapsulates us like a pill.
Instead, “it’s time we stop feeling sorry for ourselves and do something different for a change.”