Gwendolyn Brooks We Real Cool

“Very early in life I became fascinated with the wonders language can achieve. And began playing with words” (Williams). This is a quote by Gwendolyn Brooks, an American poet. She was born in Topeka, Kansas on June 7, 1917. Her family later moved to Chicago at a very young age, six weeks old, and that became her home. Given her background, being a woman and African American, she was often disapproved of and criticized all her life. Despite this fact, she stood tall and fearless against the criticism because that’s what she had to do to stand out and make a difference. This determination grew stronger as she grew older and she became more involved in her community and eventually the world. This can be seen throughout all her work, but two pieces

Brooks chose to use We to show as though the players, in the poem, are questioning the reason for their existence and are supposed to be spoken softly to emphasize the unknown in life. She also wrote those lines using We to suggest a moment of self-awareness about the choices being made by the pool players (Williams). The line, “We real cool. We left school. We lurk late” showed they felt cool and confident when leaving school and lurking late alone where they couldn’t be judged (Brooks 392). This word choice shows racism because blacks were not seen as one individual person. This means a lot because these seven teenagers spent their lives growing up in a community where they weren’t even recognized as individuals; where their decisions didn’t even count for

It starts out as cheerful and rebellious but quickly changes to dramatic and depressed. The pool players are living their lives to the fullest, but no matter the judgment they receive they’ll be faced with mortality in the end just like everyone else. Which is a depressing thought because they’re already struggling to be themselves. The sentence, “We Jazz June. We Die Soon” shows death is inevitable to racism and judgment (Brooks 392). Therefore, criticism shouldn’t stop one from living their lives the way they want and to their