We real cool. Student Portal: "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks 2022-10-22
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"We Real Cool" is a poem written by Gwendolyn Brooks in 1959. The poem speaks to the theme of youth and rebellion, as it follows a group of young people who have dropped out of school and are embracing a life of leisure and carefree living.
The poem consists of just eight lines, but it packs a powerful punch. It begins with the words "We real cool," which immediately sets the tone of the poem. These words convey a sense of defiance and pride in the speaker's own nonconformity.
The rest of the poem is structured as a list of activities that the speaker and their friends engage in, all of which are seen as rebellious and outside the norm. They "sip soda," "jazz June," and "die soon." Each of these actions is a small act of rebellion against society's expectations of how young people should behave.
Despite the carefree attitude of the speaker and their friends, there is a sense of tragedy lurking beneath the surface of the poem. The final line, "We real cool," is repeated, but this time it is followed by a period instead of a comma, creating a sense of finality. This suggests that the speaker and their friends may not have a bright future ahead of them, as they have chosen to reject mainstream society and its values.
Overall, "We Real Cool" is a powerful and thought-provoking poem that speaks to the theme of youth and rebellion. It captures the energy and defiance of young people who are trying to carve out their own path in the world, but it also hints at the potential consequences of rejecting mainstream society.
We Real Cool Summary
The poem describes a group of teenagers hanging out outside of a pool hall. Although the poem is short and comprises only ten lines, it is widely studied and has inspired many other artists due to its distinctive narrative voice and form. And especially, black men do not love themselves. It is a meeting place where any number of games, pool included, could be played. Brooks changes the line length of the first and last lines to accommodate this emphasis, placing four beats in the first line and only two beats in the final line. How is this different from your reading? They seem determined to prove who they are, something that Brooks alluded to as their weakness. The citation above will include either 2 or 3 dates.
Student Portal: "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks
Internal rhyme is a rhyme that happens in the middle of a line as opposed to the end. The second date is today's date — the date you are citing the material. It could be one person among the group of players speaking for everyone else, an uninvolved onlooker projecting what he or she thinks onto the group, or every line might be spoken at the same time by all seven players. They make the most of the time they have away from obligations. It is dramatic irony because the speaker believes that by saying, "We real cool," the audience will think they are cool, but the audience is more likely to read into their words and interpret them as insecure. Instead of confirming their coolness to the reader, the speaker has made obvious their insecurities surrounding their public image. Rather than following the established path, the group are free to ignore the conventions of work and school, and thus they live according to their own schedule.
This confidence tone pervades the poem. The seven pool players immediately turn and address the listener. It is unclear whether they have left school for good or just for the day. She states that the establishment is represented by the month of June. University of Illinois Press. How could they be expected to love, surrounded by so much envy, desire, and hate? Latest answer posted September 19, 2010, 10:15 pm UTC 5 educator answers The third stanza follows the same pattern. Mainstream culture inculcates fear of black men, rewarding them most when they act out the "Native Son" role of brutal psychopath to confirm that fear, la the intensive media coverage of the Nicole Brown Simpson murder.
Alliteration and Assonance Every line of "We Real Cool" engages with alliteration, assonance, or both. It imagines these teenagers as rebels who proudly defy convention and authority—and who will likely pay for their behavior with their lives. Their world consists of pleasure and enjoyment. Why do you think Brooks chooses to rhyme in the middle as opposed to the end? The players do not seem to have any regard for their futures, only the present. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1950 for Annie Allen, becoming the first Black writer to win the award. What does this say about influences on poetry? In 1994, Brooks was named the Jefferson Lecturer by the National Endowment for the Humanities. It reads, The Pool Players.
Retrieved 24 September 2019. Although, if they left school that is no longer a concern. What Brooks does is emphasize the "we" and then gives equal weight to the other two words in each sentence. It is used here to refer to their ability to play pool but also shows their precision and determination. It is easy to fall into the patterning of the The next line informs the reader that they chose to leave school. The second perspective is the collective, first-person plural voice of the pool players.
In short lines, they talk about leaving school, playing pool, drinking gin, and other activities. The men are presenting themselves strongly, perhaps too much so. Inspired by a walk that Brooks took through the streets of Chicago, the poem was included in her third collection, The Bean Eaters 1960. Now listen to Gwendolyn Brooks read it. Her title--We Real Cool; her subject--the way in which both white society and weak black leaders are failing black men and youth. Analysis of We Real Cool Lines 1-2 Left school. The halls are now well past their popular height.
GradeSaver, 11 April 2022 Web. Brooks has won numerous awards and has authored more than twenty books. What words does she enunciate? African-American Jazz Poetry: Orality, Prosody and Performance. Below are all possible answers to this clue ordered by its rank. Genre The word "we" in this poem begins to take on a more specific meaning than the first-person plural pronoun. This line is unclear and Brooks does not reveal exactly what she meant by it in interviews.
What is the meter of "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks?
See eNotes Ad-Free Start your 48-hour free trial to get access to more than 30,000 additional guides and more than 350,000 Homework Help questions answered by our experts. Malcolm X, moving away from black separatism toward a politics of global justice, was gunned down by "state-supported black-on-black violence. The second is the date of publication online or last modification online. You can easily improve your search by specifying the number of letters in the answer. Cite this page as follows: "We Real Cool - Summary" eNotes Publishing Ed. How does this enjambment affect the way you read the poem? For example, Brooks doesn't just rhyme "late" and "straight" in the third stanza, she gives each line's respective verb a hard "k" sound which contributes to the symmetry and flow of the lines.
Seven at the Golden Shovel. These two lines are straight forward, just like the rest of the poem. In the same interview, Brooks explains how the poem has even been banned in some areas due to the use of the word "jazz" due to a perceived sexual nature — which, Brooks said, was not her intention, as she simply intended for it to represent music. The enjambment of this poem is similar to the style of jazz improvisation. The game of pool is a symbol for the performance of masculinity and masculine competition.
