Brian Stefans's List: Poems by Brian Kim Stefans Annotated

• • This is a shortish poem I wrote on my Olivetti typewriter and revised heavily in the computer. Caught somewhere between Frank O'Hara and I think Wallace Stevens, it uses a lot more end-rhyme than I normally use, but has a quick, associative motion that suggests the New York School.
• A Testament

  • I was thinking of the "Testament of Francois Villon," though I'm not sure this poem has much to do with Villon. It has its gritty moments, but that's not saying much.
• Bryan Sharp

  • Student of mine at Stockton College. Why use his name? Well, who is Ramon Fernandez?
• in a world that is covered in snow

  • This annotation should go with the second instance of this phrase. Diigo seems to find the first instance of a phrase or word and annotates that.

  • Repeats second line of poem. The repetition of htis line suggests Anthony Hecht's sestina "Sestina Inverno," a poem about the city in upstate New York called Rochester, one of whose end words is "snow."
• funny little pills

  • Reference either to mood-altering drugs such as "Ecstasy" or presciprtion anti-depressants and other sorts of medications, collapsing the moral ground between the two.
• flashback

  • Common technique in films and novels in which a sequence of events prior to the events of the present are portrayed.
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• beer commercial girls

  • Back in the days of television, beer commercials, when they didn't include frogs and cars, often included images of beautiful, scantily clad ladies keeping their figures by drinking lots of beer with buff men who did likewise.
• recurrence

  • See Freud on "eternal recurrrence."
• coup-de-des

  • Title of poem by Stephan Mallarme. The full title of the poem, in English, is "A Throw of the Dice (Does Not Abolish Chance)."
• B-list hero
  

  • The type of actor or actress that only appears in "B" -- i.e. second-rate, cheaply produced -- movies."
• contracted
  for another two seasons

  • Suggests that the hero of the poem will appear for another two seasons of the television show "Lost."
• far far away…

  • Allusion to the movie "Star Wars," which begins with the words "A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away..."
• Philadelphia

  • Where BKS was living at the time of writing (2548 Emerald Street, a house he owned).
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• Gamespot
  

  • Chain of stores that sell video games.
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• quarters

  • Video games, like pinball, used to costs a quarter in the arcades.
• fifty bucks
  

  • Average price of a video game.
• Playstation 3, or Xbox 360,

  • Two popular gaming "consoles."
• Nielsons

  • The Nielson ratings were the way that television executives could determine the popularity of the show. Probably not in use any more at the time of the writing of this poem, but that just shows how out of touch BKS could be with the changing times.
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• cake,
  awaiting the final chorus so she can wake

  • Notice the effective use of rhyme _near_ the end of the poem, but not as the final couplet. Some real masterful stuff here.

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• giblets

  • That's ridiculous. He's a poet, he' doesn't eat.

  • I think I know! He means that he's hungry.
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  • • Little bits of meat. Don't know what he's talking about here.
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• television queens
  in the afternoon

  • Quite obviously not. He means The Acid Queen.

  • Probably people like Oprah Winfrey and the ladies from The View whose opinions go a long way in shaping the way America thinks about culture. That's what I think.
• late night kings

  • Folks like David Letterman or Jay Leno who rule the evening airwaves.
• Southern comforts

  • Name of a popular alcoholic beverage, mostly composed of whisky.
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