We+Real+Cool+(Block+12)

=Analysis of �WE REAL COOL�= �We Real Cool� is a very unique and nicely done work of poetry. The author Gwendolyn Brooks does a very nice job of having this poem flow off the tongue easily and also makes the poem very easy to read. Brooks also has a few very direct and influential message in the context of the poem. The messages and, likewise, the poem were made to appeal to young African Americans in the late 1960�s during the struggle for African-American civil rights. Brooks expresses the problems and also the dangers which affected the young African-American community in the poem as a way to help the youth realize the ways of their problems and change themselves for the good of the community and most importantly themselves. The content in this poem is directed African-American youth in the 1960�s. Jazz was the popular music of the time in the African-American community, and slang words were used in the content of the songs and likewise in the common language of young African-American youth. Also the way the poem is written is a way to get the young black youth to read in the late 1960�s. The poem is very easy to read and has a catchy almost musical flow.


 * Summary:** The main characters are pool players. Their were seven of them at the golden shovel, which also connects to the last line "We die soon", showing that the end result of their actions is death. They think that they were the hottest thing out, they snuck out of school, they stayed out late, they smoked. They talked to girls and tried to get at them. They drunk. They had sex with women or they all had sex with the same woman and then they all died.

The first line is the only one with “We” at the beginning and the end. Contrast this with the last line, which contains no pronoun. Perhaps with the poem’s opening, then, the pool players’ identity is at its strongest, but wanes until its weakest point — the end. “Real cool” and “left school” are more sonically dissimilar within each pair than the other paired words of the poem, such as “thin gin,” except for the last line’s “die soon.” Still, “real cool” and “left school” do link up with the use of the recurring “l” sound. “Die” and “soon,” however, have only one similarity: as is true for all of the words in the poem, they are monosyllabic. With one exception, the word “We” is enjambed, or placed at the end of the previous line with which it does not semantically belong, instead of being placed with the line it does belong with, the one that follows. The technique forces the reader to hesitate after each “We.” Brooks has remarked that the hesitation, coupled with her choice of a quiet uttering of “We,” signals a weak sense of the pool players’ identity. In fact, so weak is this identity that these pool players, while almost always thought to be black males — perhaps because the poet is black and it is boys who usually hang out in pool parlors — could be white males or even females. Alliteration of “l” and “str” sounds mark these two lines. The words “Lurk” and “Strike” both have sinister connotations; lurking involves hiding and watching, possibly with an evil intent, while strike suggests an assault. But “Lurk” might mean little more than to hide out in the pool parlor, and “Strike straight” may refer to playing pool well or to “telling it like it is.” To “Sing sin” probably means to proclaim sin as morally fitting or good — or at least pleasurable. “Thin gin” refers to drinking gin with a mixer such as ginger ale or tonic water, the point simply being that these pool players drink hard liquor. “Sing” and “sin” alliterate but “Thin” and “gin” rhyme. “Jazz June” can have several readings. “Jazz” here is a verb and could mean to have sex, or a good time, with a woman named June. “Jazz June” could also mean have a good time in the month of June. Finally, these pool players might listen to or play jazz. During the 1950s, the time this poem was written, cool was the prevalent form of jazz, a music of intricate harmonies and subdued dynamics. By the last line of the poem, it is not exactly certain whether the players are bragging or noticing a profound problem with their way of life.
 * Lines 1-2**
 * Lines 3-4**
 * Lines 5-6**
 * Lines 7-8**