The Message of Gwendolyn Brooks' We Real Cool

In the poem 1958, Gwendolyn MacEwen describes the high school environment as it would have been in the late 1950’s. Popular fads among the teenagers during this era are explored in detail. The prevailing theme throughout the text pertains to the idea of belonging. The poem focuses primarily on the desire teenagers have to fit in. Throughout this response I will explore the ways in which this poem differs and relates to the high school environment today. Secondly I will analyze the connections between this poem and a modern day movie. Lastly, I will express the ways in which my personal experiences relate to the central message in the poem.

She also presents a slight rhythm to the reading that allows for smooth reading. In keeping with her open form, there is no set scheme to the rhyme pattern. However, there is a single ending sound constantly repeated without a set pattern throughout the work. She also connects pairs of lines at random just for the sake of making connections to make that particular stanza flow. At the same time, she chose blatantly not to rhyme in certain parts to catch the reader’s attention.

The poem also uses end rhyme to add a certain rhythm to the poem as a whole. And the scheme he employs: aabbc, aabd, aabbad. End rhyme, in this poem, serves to effectively pull the reader through to the end of the poem. By pairing it with lines restricted to eight syllables. The narrator creates an almost nursery-rhyme like rhythm. In his third stanza however, his last line, cutting short of eight syllables, stands with an emphatic four syllables. Again, in the last stanza, he utilizes the same technique for the last line of the poem. The narrator’s awareness of rhyme and syllable structure provides the perfect bone structure for his poem’s rhythm.

The poem “We Real Cool”, written by Gwendolyn Brooks, is about a group of seven young boys who abandoned school to live the street life. They can’t wait to live a fun carefree life, drinking, partying and ditching all responsibility. Throughout this poem, Brooks is sending a clear message to her reader with the use of rhyme and imagery she creates a lasting impression showing that dropping out of school in order to embrace the street life amounts to nothing in the end.

The poem, “Po’ Boy Blues” uses rhyme in the fourth and sixth lines of each stanza.

The authors use of alliteration helps to provide specific tones to the words Oliver chooses to use. These tones then go on to provide more accurate connotations that prove their significance in the poem. For example, when Oliver wrote "the dark burred faintly belching bogs" the repetition of the "B" sounds give an accurate description of what an actual swamp may sound like. Words like "belching" and "bogs" are not words commonly associated with things like beauty and ease. This the helps to signify the readers of the difficulties the speaker is experiencing. Another

Mesa’s use of particular phrasing and word choices allow the poem to be narrated with a tone of faint, awestruck wonder. When read through, the narrator of The Players is encaptured with the game between the two men. She is so fascinated by this ritual, that

As well all know, connections are not easy to come by. Connections are made for resembling one thing to another. In addition to the resemblance, the poem, “We Real Cool”, has a strong connection that is shown by the author that help illustrate the meaning of the poem. In the poem of, “We Real Cool”, by Gwendolyn Brooks, there is a satisfyingly strong connection involving the poem, title, and author.

After reading the two assigned readings and comparing it to the idea of conformity in full I have come a definite decision in my mind about the comparison and contrast of the two ideas given off in the first taste of the readings. I have seen that in “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks tells the tale of being not loose and free and having as little conformity as possible. Whereas, on the other hand, Junot Diaz’s idea of conformity in the excerpt we were assigned to read shows that the family’s ideas of conformity are very expected and it shows in their morals and they try to enforce it. Even though that’s not the case for Lola.

At the same time it reflects the intelligence level of the people the author of the poem associates with this kind of bad behavior. The words used in this poem are very simple, so much so that a child could understand them. Children and teenagers are the ones typically targeted by their peers to be "cool". This poem brings up multiple examples about what this "cool behavior" entail; fighting, drinking, skipping school and staying out late, this is the life of one of the cool kids. This simple rhymes could also hint that the author thinks that people who exhibit this kind of behavior are illiterate and stupid, realizing their demise when it is too late. The title of this poem has a major error, there is no verb. This hints that the speaker, or the speakers in this case, did not complete their education, given that sentence structure is taught to children in the early years of elementary school. The third musical rhythm the author uses in this poem is a refrain. At the end of every line, except the last, is the word “we”. This format hints at the pack mentality that is associated with peer

The internal rhyme paces the overall rhythm of the poem. “We / Sing sin. We / Thin gin” (5-6). The rhyming

In the poem “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks we are introduced to a short but provocative poem. We are thrown into a world that moves fast and is seemingly very cool. In this poem Gwendolyn Brooks describes a world she saw full of pool players, heavy drinking, and sinful music. While reading this poem every word is positioned in a way that makes the poem move with a rhythmic musical beat. I believe the author Gwendolyn Brooks builds on her theme of a dark and cool world that often leads partakers to an early grave by using anaphora, alliteration, and metaphor with a rhythmic play on words. I believe her use of these literary tools enables her to convey a poem that is mystifying, provocative, but also teaches a life lesson. The author in my opinion has a deeper meaning than simply describing a pool hall; it’s about the life these young men lead and the potential fatal consequences of living a fast life.

They are telling what their lives are like. After all of the sentences in the poem, it ends with the young adults saying they will die soon. The universal theme present in Brooks’ “We Real Cool” is that staying in school is necessary to having a good life. This poem’s second sentence presents the fact that the people Brooks is talking about in this poem left school. The people Brooks is talking about in the poem then begin to spiral into a life of doing unintelligent and unhealthy things such as lurking through the night and drinking gin.

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,”

In the poem “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks it is evident through the line “We real cool. We left school.” that the students are heavily influenced by a negative ring leader or their peers because it is indicating that they were skipping classes, and it seems to be the popular trend. This symbolizes the nonchalant mood that is portrayed throughout the entire poem and the nature of a child considering the students are following instead of leading. As an adolescent, it is difficult to discover oneself and how one can be accepted in our forever changing society. Therefore, these young students were so engulfed in self-image and acceptance, that their attitude towards school was altered to one of negligence and defiance. However, if not influenced