Poetry Essay
“We Real Cool”, Gwendolyn Brooks
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.
The poem begins with the word “We”, which is the only line in the poem that begins in this such manor, although the word “we” is repeated six more times throughout the poem. The “we” that I believe is represented at the beginning is the unity that comes from these seven friends. When y...
This week’s reflection is on a book titled Girls Like Us and it is authored by Rachel Lloyd. The cover also says “fighting for a world where girls not for sale”. After reading that title I had a feeling this book was going to be about girls being prostituted at a young age and after reading prologue I sadly realized I was right in my prediction.
Gwendolyn Brooks in “We Real Cool” develops an ironic, sarcastic tone through specific word choice. The poem begins with the phrase “We real cool” (Line 1) so immediately, the reader knows that these pool playing buddies define themselves as “cool”. In their minds, they are the epitomes of
...from the dullness of schoolwork to many possibilities. The next lines poke fun at the value of education and celebrate their street learning. ?Lurk late,? ?Strike straight,? ?Sing sin,? and ?Thin gin,? contradict any possibility for mental growth. Symbolism comes in the picture in the next line, ?We Jazz June,? which has many meanings. The word ?Jazz? signifies sexual intercourse. Then the word ?June? becomes a female. The tone of the poem dramatically changes when the reader learns the dropouts die soon. The group end in the last line, ?Die soon,? the final consequence of trying to be cool. Seemingly having fun in the beginning being cool, they are now completely powerless because they are dead. The poem really gives an obvious picture of what young African-American males are driven to do under the impression of trying to be cool. Since their minds are headed straight to corruption, they have no clue because they are having so much fun being cool. Leaving school, staying out late, singing sin, drinking alcohol, and having sex apparently are the only things that are important to them. With this mentality, more and more inner city males while continue hastening toward their death.
The poem, We Real Cool, by Gwendolyn Brooks speaks through the voice of a young clique who believes it is “real cool.” Using slang and simple language to depict the teenage voice in first person, Brooks’s narrators explain that they left school to stay out together late at night, hanging around pool halls, drinking, causing trouble, and meeting girls. Their lifestyle, though, will ultimately lead them to die at a young age. But, despite an early death, the narrator expresses that they are “real cool” because of this risky routine. Through her poem, Brooks’s shows the ironic consequence of acting “cool”: it leads to death.
"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.
With Jefferies’ complex cool we can understand gangsta rappers as something more than nihilistic villains. It may not be the preferred way of representing the story of life in the ghetto but it does just that. Even with commercial Hip-Hop, real sentiment slip through the corporate cracks to reveal a gangsta masculinity that is emotionally responsive and cognizant.
Gwendolyn Brooks We Real Cool and Joan Murrays We Old Dudes were written at two different time periods in United States history, and affects two very different groups of people, yet both seem to use the same type of technique to describe the events that happened when they wrote their respective poems. Brooks poem takes place in the Middle of the Civil Rights Movement, while Murrays take place during the 2006 midterm election, when the democrats gained control of both the House and the Senate. While Brooks and Murrays poem are directed towards two groups of people, they both describe the feelings of their respective group of people.
Here, Hayes uses words like “We”, “I” and “theirs” in the poem rather than the definitive names. The word choice displays that Hayes is talking about the group. As he describes in a poem,
There is alliteration in the poem like “Lurk late,” “Strike straight,” “Sing sin,” “Jazz June,” and “Thin gin.” Alliteration makes the poem language memorable and musical. Beside this alliteration, there are also many rhymes that can be seen in this poem such as cool/school, sin/gin, the repetitive “We,” and a full stop in the middle of the line. Rhyme scheme of the poem is AA BB CC DD. Rhyme is regularly inseparably attached to frame as well. For instance, those rhymes in the poem built into her stanza, contributed to the major defining characteristics and meter. A grace note is a short note that gets squeezed in before a beat that is mostly used in musical terminology. For the rhyme and music of this poetry, Brooks does a great
“Who Will Know Us?,” is not considered a standard English verse poem because it does not contain 5 feet syllables. This poem is a contemporary poem, or free verse. There is four stanzas in this poem, the first three contains 10 or more lines, while the last stanza only has three. The reason why the last stanza is so short is because
Though most of the poem is not dialogue, from what little speaking there is between the...
I found that throughout this poem there was much symbolism within it. Identifying that it was written in first person form showed that this poem relates to the author on a personal basis, and that it was probably written to symbolize his life. But when talking about people’s lives, you can conclude that people’s lives are generally and individually very diffe...
In relation to structure and style, the poem contains six stanzas of varying lengths. The first, second, and fourth stanzas
This is an interesting attribute to the poem because generally, poetry and prose are consistent with a sole point of view. The author starts the poem with the word, “We” indicating first person point of view. This helps connect the author with the reader being together in a “long line,” (line 1). This puts the reader with the author, giving them the idea of what it is like to stand and wait, exhausted and “shifting from one foot to another,” (line 7). This makes the reader feel that exhaustion and feel in that moment as well. When Levine uses second person point of view to also bring the reader into the story, so that the reader can experience and feel the same things that the author does. Levine wants the reader to know that work is about waiting, and how “you” are waiting too. It is intended to give the reader a look into how work is about sacrificing a social life and interaction with loved ones to succeed at school, work, and be able to sleep at
The working class can work to create the ‘bread’ but at the end of the day they have no right to it, it goes to the upper classes. By including the reader within the poem using ‘We’ there is more of a unity and solidarity within the text. Its like the reader is part of the march. The poem is written in a song structure so it is easily sung or chanted within a march or a meeting of the