We real cool by Gwendolyn brooks (wk 10)

           “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks is simple yet devastating, comic yet tragic and rebellious yet fearful. The parallel structure of the repeated “we” complements the simplicity of the two-word rhyme and the illiterate ignorance of the phrasing “we real cool”. This poem by virtue of its simplicity and shortness seems to speak in code. This code was the code of the dropout pool players. They had their own secret-coded nonconformist crowd in which each dropout pool player’s sole identity was simply as part of the group and amounted to nothing else. The code shows their lack of individual identity and misunderstanding of how to get ahead in life. Much like the poem, life was a puzzle to them. It is only when the subject of the “We Real Cool” is established by Brooks to be the pool-player dropouts that the poem makes sense: “We real cool. We /Left school. We / Lurk late. We / Strike straight. We / Sing sin. We / Thin gin. We / Jazz June. We / Die soon.” “Strike straight” becomes “hit the pool balls.” “Sing sin thin gin” becomes “get drunk and (perhaps) hustle.” “We jazz june. We die soon” means “we make life jazzy (entertaining) this month (i.e. for now)” but die before we have a chance at a future.” As I’ve done in a previous poem, I bring up the period position because they show the inferiority of the weakly said “we” and place all authority in the lines that come before them. “We real cool” is definitely a work of social activism and Gwendolyn Brooks was a virtuous writer revolutionary at the very least in her writing.