Poem Analysis: We Real Cool

In the poem “We Real Cool,” I think the speaker and the poet are not the same; the speaker of the poem is the group of young men. I believe they are not the same because the poet wanted to share her better intentions of what she can see across the society at her

It seems that parts of the ballad building structure in Gwendolyn Brooks, "We Real Cool," are lines. As a component of a lyric, We Real Cool (We) happens more than some other word in the ballad. It is viewed as a line break, which a word of the line closes. In addition, the lines in the lyric make up the essential beat of the piece. Along these lines, the line needs to fulfill a great deal. It is likely, Brooks creates an impression about how critical the character of the youthful gathering can be. As its own particular substance, the gathering works. The essayist foreshadows well a portion of the power and energy that originates from being a part of the tight gathering, alongside a portion of the indecisive moves youngsters makes. Furthermore,

Richard Blanco is a Cuban- American poet who was given the oppurunity to write an inaugaration poem for Barack Obama's second swearing-in. He wrote a poem titled "One Today" that praised the good and unique things about the United States and also the everyday people who's daily routines help to make America the proud country that it is.

Lorna Dee Cervantes' poem, “Poema para los Californios Muertos” (“Poem for the Dead Californios”), is a commentary on what happened to the original inhabitants of California when California was still Mexico, and an address to the speaker's dead ancestors. Utilizing a unique dynamic, consistently alternating between Spanish and English, Cervantes accurately represents the fear, hatred, and humility experienced by the “Californios” through rhythm, arrangement, tone, and most importantly, through use of language.

“It's great that you can listen and be a shoulder to someone, but what about when someone doesn't need a shoulder? What if they need the arms or something like that? You can't just sit there and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things,”. Children mature as they grow older. Manifestations of maturity include; overcoming adversities, perseverance, and making decisions that positively impact one’s future.

As the poem begins, the reader is introduced to the subjects of the poem, “The Pool Players. Seven at the

Clint Smith is a writer, teacher, and doctoral candidate in Education at Harvard University with a concentration in Culture, Institutions, and Society. Smith Clint wrote a poem called “Something You should Know.” The poem is about an early job he had in a Petsmart. The poet allows the readers into his personal life, but before he had trouble opening up to people and his work. Moreover, Clint wrote an insight in the poem about relying in anything to feel safe and he says it is the most terrifying thing any person can do.

“We real cool” penned by Gwendolyn Brooks is an excellent creation that describes the nature of youths in their young life. The poem is written in a very simple manner, which gives us a clear picture of the youth’s considering themselves as a real cool and involving in a fun as well as risky activities. The poem is the perfect example of what can be accomplished in a very short space with a simple everyday language using only few well-placed words. The simplicity of the language gives us the feeling that it is a real time creation of an author when she was having fun with friends, drinking gin, staying out late at night, enjoying jazz and so on. Also the simplicity of language points the fun, excitement, and carefree moments with no burden

The poem is much more innocent than what the modern reader may think. We can start off by looking at the title of the poem “My Papa’s Waltz.” A waltz is a ballroom and folk dance. Clearly, the speaker of the poem is speaking about his father and the dance. In the first stanza, the speaker explains how such waltzing with his father is not easy, as speaker’s father has had a little too much whiskey, which made the waltzing a little difficult as the father was under the influence and probably had difficulties keeping his balance. If we read on to the next stanza, it shows father is all over the place and having trouble keeping balance while dancing with his son in the kitchen. Mother seems to be upset about the situation, but only because pots and pans slid from the kitchen shelf onto the floor from all the romping. As we move on to the next stanza, the speaker explains how fathers knuckle is battered, which is most likely a result of injury from romping in the kitchen. Speaker also speaks about his right ear being scraped with every step his father missed. This could be because the speaker was a young, short boy who reached his father’s waistline and as they danced roughly the buckle will scrape his

Some people drink for the sport of getting drunk. However, in this poem, the father is not a pleasant drunk to be around. When the speaker states "We romped until the pans / slid from the kitchen shelf," the reader gets the impression that the father is roughhousing with the son (5-6). It is not until the speaker says "The hand that held my wrist (9)" that one realizes that he is being physically held by his father. The child has no choice but to keep on "waltzing." There is nobody that is going to stop what is going on in this house due to the fact that the mother is simply watching. The boy did not realize his father was doing anything wrong until he remembers back to his childhood and comes to understand what really happened. He discovers that his childhood wasn't actually like everyone else. That may be why the speaker is now looking back on these drunken nights and remembering how horrible they were.

The father is a drunken man who abuses his son, but the son accepts his father’s actions and continues to seek love from him. The boy would “waltz” with his father while the mother watched with fear, and with “every step you missed, my right ear scraped a buckle. You beat time on my head…” (Lines 11-13). The father drunkenly abused his son, but the son who “...hung on like death...Still clinging to your shirt” (Lines 3 and 16) was longing to be loved. The tone of this poem is violent and harsh due to the unhealthy relationship between father and

which goes back to the arrogance, or general cockiness, of the seven boys (“On ‘We Real Cool’”). The poem then seems to have a deeper historical background relating to the struggles of lower class America. The two lines, “We Jazz June” and “We Die soon” makes a connection to the seven boys going back to the Scottsboro Boys Trial in the 1930’s (Brooks 6-8). This was where seven black boys were convicted of raping two young white girls and were sentenced to a lynching. This is supported by Gary Smith, “...the word ‘Jazz’ connoted meaningless or empty talk and sexual intercourse.”

Gwendolyn sets the scene with the subtitle of the poem “The pool players. Seven at the Golden Shovel.” Gwendolyn paints this poem through the voice of seven young boys at a pool room during the school day. The first line of the poem is “We real cool. We left school.” Gwendolyn, in other words, is suggesting to readers that the boys are not in school when they are supposed to be and they think they're cool. The poem goes on to state in the next three stanzas that the boys “lurk late,”

“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

Some of the poems and essays I have read during this class were relatable to me. Being away from college, I have struggled with not being at home. I have become a different person when I am at school, but when I am home, I feel like I am my normal self again. Some of these authors of the poems and essays that I have read throughout this class has struggled with being somewhere where they don’t belong and that they are someone else when they are not home. Unlike the other poems and essays we have read throughout the course. I enjoyed reading the ones about “home” because I actually understood what they are going through and that I can relate. Some of these poems and essays include “Going Home” by Maurice Kenny, Postcard from Kashmir”, by Agha Shahid Ali, “Returning” by Elias Miguel Munoz and “Hometown” by Luis Cabalquinto. All of these poems deal with duality.