You Are Jeff

At one point in the poem, the speaker makes an explicit hermeneutic statement (a statement about interpretation): “This is how you make the meaning, you take two things and try to define the space between them” (Stanza 18). That stanza brings together identity and desire, asking both who “You” wants to be and whom “You” loves: “Jeff or Jeff?” Each Jeff’s identity, however, acquires meaning only in the context of other Jeffs: Jeff may appear aggressive because other Jeffs’ behavior is mild, or someone finds Jeff handsome because he looks like other Jeffs who have been called handsome. This is important to the poet, as he reveals in an interview while discussing his dislike of reducing identity to a name:

Naming restricts. Once restricted, it’s easy to be judged and punished. […] In ‘You Are Jeff,’ everyone in the world—including the speaker and the reader—is named Jeff. With only one identity, each part of the world must now define itself in relation to its other parts, rather than as a stand-alone thing, independent of context (Russell, Legacy. “Fight Club: Richard Siken.” 2011. Bomb Magazine).

Accordingly, the poem refuses to “name” its meaning, to state it explicitly.