The sub-title of the poem “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks, which is, “The Pool Players. Seven at the Golden Shovel”, tells the reader what the poem is about. However, poems are more than just written words and titles, they are born out of intense feelings such as love, sadness, anger, fear, frustration, etcetera, and how the author comprehends those feelings (S.A. Moore and D.W. Moore, 1990). Therefore, the poem, “We Real Cool” is about more than just pool players. For instance, when the author uses the pronoun “We” in the poem, it could be a reference to young African Americans, given the author is African American. On the other hand, it could be an all-encompassing reference to youth regardless of race. Nevertheless, the author uses, “We” in the poem to emphasize a specific group of people or individuals, and does this by beginning the poem with “We”, and ending each line with “We” except the last line of the poem. Interestingly, the use of “We” in the poem can be an all-inclusive reference to the author and the reader, both of whom were young once. …show more content…
For example, each line break signifies a specific step that is sometimes taken in youthful indiscretions such as, “We real cool. We Left School” (Kirszner and Mandell, 2012). In youth one has a desire to be accepted among their peers, to be perceived as a “cool” person, and often they make poor decisions to achieve this perception. Therefore, the author was trying to convey to the reader that this was the first bad decision made, and with each line that follows, the decisions become worse ultimately ending in death. Therefore, the poem is about young people making poor decisions and the consequences associated with those
The different groups of people within the poem represent the different stages of life. At the beginning of the poem it talks about a young boy and his dog and swimmers. Several lines down it talks about “young lovers” and then families.
The poem “We Real Cool” is a very powerful poem, although expressed with very few words. To me, this poem describes the bottom line of the well known “ghetto life”. It describes the desperate and what they need, other than the usual what they want, money. Without actually telling us all about the seven young men, it does tell us about them. The poem tells of the men’s fears, their ambitions, and who they think they are, versus who they really are.
Throughout the poem, the author chooses simple diction. This makes the tone straightforward and blunt, like a black America who simply expresses himself instead of sermonizing about discrimination. Thereby, readers can accept the poem’s argument more easily. Furthermore, the author writes the poem mostly in long sentences to emphasize on short yet important sentences such as “That’s America.”, “Be we are. That’s true!”
“We Real Cool," by Gwendolyn Brooks is a fervent short poem that tells a story of teenage rebellion. This poem is a formal verse ballad which uses simple sentences that create a steady meter giving the poem a catchy jazz like quality. Although the poem is short, it packs a powerful message about youth. Gwendolyn Brooks centered her works predominately around the African American consciousness. During the 1960’s when the poem was written, many teens especially young African-American men felt misunderstood and like the world was set up for them to fail. On the surface, it appears this poem is a mere description of young adults that are misjudged. The deeper message of this poem addresses the dangers of peer pressure, and its detrimental effects to self-identity because of the disconnect between society and youth of that time.
"We Real Cool" is a short, yet powerful poem by Gwendolyn Brooks that sends a life learning message to its reader. The message Brooks is trying to send is that dropping out of school and roaming the streets is in fact not "cool" but in actuality a dead end street.
The first stanza, which contains the son’s childish speech, is short, only three lines. However, by the stanza which contains the son’s angry talkback, the stanza is double in length, having four lines. Each line represents a literal level of maturity and growth that the son has gained. As time moves on, he is able to gain more and more experience in life. As his experience accumulates over time, so does his hostility. His terse, childish begging for his father to simply read another story turns to an angry speech about how he no longer beleievs in his father as an authority figure. Despite this, the son’s psyche changes back, as all this maturation is played out in the father’s head, and when he returns, he is back to his childish self, bu this stanza is the longest in the poem. This suggests that when someone is able to mature enough, they are able to comprehend more of the world than they did before, and are able to act
"We Real Cool" is a poem written by Gwendolyn Brooks. This poem is short and sweet, but gets a stupendous message across to the audience. "We Real Cool" depicts a group of people who live carelessly. The people talked about in the poem stay out late, drink alcohol, ditch school and party. To me this poem shows one path of life, and that is the road to an early grave. But I look past the path shown in the poem, and look towards the opposite path, which is the path I want for myself. I have used this poem to set myself on the right path, which does not consist of staying out late, drinking alcohol, ditching school, and partying, also the path I have set for myself isn't one towards an early burial service at the town cemetery.
Race plays a big part in this poem. He speaks on Harlem and its culture and this environment but also about mutual interest with people
Throughout the entirety of Brooks’ poem, the pool players were confident and took accountability for their decisions because the continuous cohesiveness of their actions were noted. “We sing sin. We thin gin. We jazz June.” In the beginning of “We Real Cool”, the author provided the setting of the poem, which allows readers to have more detail to the information given.
(19-22). Comparing the two sisters in this poem is also a unique quality this poem has, because the speaker clearly contrasts the life of a person who lived as others dictated to someone who lived more unconventionally. The narrators of the two poems also differ a great deal, for in "We Real Cool," the tone of the pool players is one of attitude
The syntax has sentences with periods at the end, making the sentence emphasize the true message of the poem. The stanzas that have enjambment, “ The boy watched this, as now he sometimes drives The five miles out-of-way to see that house again.” gives off that an important idea for the next stanza. The vocabulary, “ He wheedled, and cajoled, begged and promised”, reflects on the adult on how meticulously he understands life and growing up. There is no rhyme due to the poem being free verse. The poem characterizes alliteration, “ While in the little deeps of darkened houses” , by emphasizing that the summer house is warm and cozy.
“We Real Cool” is a poem that was written by poet Gwendolyn Brooks in the year of 1959. This poem states that the black young people in the United States went through to make a clear definition of themselves and tried to seek their values in the late fifties and early sixties, young kids knowing they are different from the society, so they started their abandonment from a young age, they give up school because they know they cannot be accept as other white kids, they were caught in things as rape, murder and robbery because that's the only thing the now to express their anger. They do everything that seems fun to them then die young because they have no hope left for them. These African American young ones are living in
The poem is about African American young men, who choose the street life over getting an education. They are the ones who die sooner because they have
On the other hand, the Poem "Deliberate" by Amy Uyemalsu portrays how a "16"(1) year old, or young adult, often mask their identity in order to fit in with society's expectations. The poem title "Deliberate" Demonstrates to the reader the unintentional urge to live up to society's standards, after moving to a new city. The speaker mentioned the "Gangsters" (10), known to cause trouble, referring to the negative influence that may impact our identities. The rhythm of a poem can indicate to its reader the mood of the theme. The poem "we real Cool" portrays a balanced musical rhythm with pauses indicated by the
Furthermore, the last two stanzas are more personal in the sense of how the narrator speaks. The word “we” is used many times in these last two stanzas, more than the first three. In all five of the stanzas, the word “we” was used as the authors way of