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if i really wanted to feel happy i'd feel happy already
"Jordan Castro's if i really wanted to feel happy i'd feel happy already is one of my favorite books. I feel consistently delighted, excited, emotional, amused, intellectually stimulated while reading it and thinking about it." - Tao Lin, author of Shoplifting from American Apparel
"Jordan Castro is a thin man. This is why the inner fat man inside of me wants to hate him. But I don't. Jordan Castro is one of those true poets whose poems don't feel like poems. When you read most poems it makes you feel like you're fasting. This is how empty most poems feel. Castro's poems are different. They are full of carbs and girls and life and recklessness and wildness and flesh. They fill me up. They make me feel hungry for more. I read them and I eat. I read them and I eat. I grow large with this rock and roll and life. Fifty years from now, people will read these poems and whisper, "I want to be young again. I want to be young again." And it will be so." - Scott McClanahan, author of Stories V!
"Jordan Castro is a thin man. This is why the inner fat man inside of me wants to hate him. But I don't. Jordan Castro is one of those true poets whose poems don't feel like poems. When you read most poems it makes you feel like you're fasting. This is how empty most poems feel. Castro's poems are different. They are full of carbs and girls and life and recklessness and wildness and flesh. They fill me up. They make me feel hungry for more. I read them and I eat. I read them and I eat. I grow large with this rock and roll and life. Fifty years from now, people will read these poems and whisper, "I want to be young again. I want to be young again." And it will be so." - Scott McClanahan, author of Stories V!
- GenresPoetry
162 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
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February 9, 2013I wrote ten paragraphs for an opening review of this book on The Tangential.
July 27, 2013
I'd recommend this.
In the opening poem, called “self-help: life-affirming philosophy rooted in existentialism, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and the unidirectional nature of time,” Jordan writes: “through a calm, detached, mildly ambitious perception and assessment of / situations and circumstances / i can increase intelligence levels, power levels, and good feelings in my brain.” That sets up a prevalent theme in his poetry. It's a kind of detached/objective self-criticism, a willingness to change oneself for the better, coupled with a sense of inability to actually accomplish anything. A helplessness. Hence the book's title.
“if i really wanted to feel happy i would feel happy already” is a line from a poem called “take pills.” Jordan's drug-related issues I (fortunately) can't relate to, but the feeling of being young, well-off, having every opportunity in the world, etc., etc., and yet still wasting all your time and feeling like you have no idea what you're doing—Jordan in fact writes “i don't know what i'm talking about” and “i have no idea what i'm doing or believe” on separate occasions—I relate to that. Reading Jordan's poems is watching him search for answers. And without finding any. The book closes with “philosophy poem,” where he logically breaks down life, emotions, reality, and so forth, naturally arriving at a sort of nihilism, “for now.”
Jordan's voice is this underwhelming, conversational deadpan throughout the entire book. In a few poems he describes some social interaction, and the complete dryness of the lines is almost scary. “you said it's really funny / i looked at the t.v. / i said this is really funny”—this is all too similar to how I feel when I'm interacting with certain people. With a million things going on in my head I can only manage to blurt out something basic. Jordan doesn't even bother to dignify the words with quotation marks.
I've heard people generalize about this type of writing (“alt-lit”), calling it “ironic” or whatever. I don't believe that's the case at all. I think the majority of these poems are incredibly honest and raw. I don't sense any pretense whatsoever. I could see why someone wouldn't like Jordan's style, though. It is really flat and sometimes you have to dig for meaning.
It's also worth noting there's some prose in here: a very short story/fragment.
And I think this book is a little bit better than Young Americans. It felt more serious. Both are good though.
In the opening poem, called “self-help: life-affirming philosophy rooted in existentialism, cognitive-behavioral therapy, and the unidirectional nature of time,” Jordan writes: “through a calm, detached, mildly ambitious perception and assessment of / situations and circumstances / i can increase intelligence levels, power levels, and good feelings in my brain.” That sets up a prevalent theme in his poetry. It's a kind of detached/objective self-criticism, a willingness to change oneself for the better, coupled with a sense of inability to actually accomplish anything. A helplessness. Hence the book's title.
“if i really wanted to feel happy i would feel happy already” is a line from a poem called “take pills.” Jordan's drug-related issues I (fortunately) can't relate to, but the feeling of being young, well-off, having every opportunity in the world, etc., etc., and yet still wasting all your time and feeling like you have no idea what you're doing—Jordan in fact writes “i don't know what i'm talking about” and “i have no idea what i'm doing or believe” on separate occasions—I relate to that. Reading Jordan's poems is watching him search for answers. And without finding any. The book closes with “philosophy poem,” where he logically breaks down life, emotions, reality, and so forth, naturally arriving at a sort of nihilism, “for now.”
Jordan's voice is this underwhelming, conversational deadpan throughout the entire book. In a few poems he describes some social interaction, and the complete dryness of the lines is almost scary. “you said it's really funny / i looked at the t.v. / i said this is really funny”—this is all too similar to how I feel when I'm interacting with certain people. With a million things going on in my head I can only manage to blurt out something basic. Jordan doesn't even bother to dignify the words with quotation marks.
I've heard people generalize about this type of writing (“alt-lit”), calling it “ironic” or whatever. I don't believe that's the case at all. I think the majority of these poems are incredibly honest and raw. I don't sense any pretense whatsoever. I could see why someone wouldn't like Jordan's style, though. It is really flat and sometimes you have to dig for meaning.
It's also worth noting there's some prose in here: a very short story/fragment.
And I think this book is a little bit better than Young Americans. It felt more serious. Both are good though.
July 18, 2013
Beware this is not philosophy it is just poetry and mediocre at that. The best part of the book is the title which holds promise upon which the book does not deliver. In fact the book does not deliver anything of value. Read the title, think about it, save yourself some time and money and go no further.
February 12, 2022
I am glad that Jordan Castro has a fan base and I do think moments of this poetry collection are touching and meta. However, I think the overall effect is that of bathos; if the anthology's trajectory included more changes of emotion from the stagnancy of "I am sad and self-aware", then it would express more polarity to the nature of living. In many ways it wallows too much in self-pity.
July 4, 2013
I liked this book. I felt surprised i liked it, which seemed odd because i thought i would like it. i was still surprised.
There were things described in this book that i have done/felt that i haven't seen described elsewhere. some of these things would probably be described as 'weird' or some such thing by a majority of the people i know, even though it seems a lot of people (especially those near my age) have done/felt these (or very similar) things.
some poems i liked because it was like sharing the thought process behind 'working through thought/emotions/ideas' but not in a way that was annoying like i have seen in a lot of other poems like that- like it didn't seem like it was insisting i feel a certain way about them.
also the title seems like something that'd be funny to imagine screaming at strangers on the street.
There were things described in this book that i have done/felt that i haven't seen described elsewhere. some of these things would probably be described as 'weird' or some such thing by a majority of the people i know, even though it seems a lot of people (especially those near my age) have done/felt these (or very similar) things.
some poems i liked because it was like sharing the thought process behind 'working through thought/emotions/ideas' but not in a way that was annoying like i have seen in a lot of other poems like that- like it didn't seem like it was insisting i feel a certain way about them.
also the title seems like something that'd be funny to imagine screaming at strangers on the street.
November 27, 2014
Jordan goes between feeling the nothingness of life and wanting to die/take xanax/binge eat to desiring to be a productive, healthy individual. He took all the feelings I could never put into the words and laid them out artistically on the page. In this giant void of nothingness its nice to know you're not alone in feeling ~~ so thanks Jordan.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews