We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks is about a group of kids hanging out in a club late at night. “The Pool Players. Seven at the Golden Shovel.” is a prelude to giving an idea of where and who we are talking about. The rest of the poem describes who and what the players are. The pool players are at some type of club or bar at seven am or pm.
“We real cool. We Left school.” This is an introduction to their thought process. For these kids, it is cool to not be in school. “We Lurk late. We Strike straight.” This follows the same logic as before, Staying up late is cool to do, so they do it. They understand that cool people are striking straight, so they follow in the footsteps set for them. “We Sing sin. We Thin gin.” This gets to where they are. Sin is terrible contextually. This can mean curse words and drugs and literally sin, like killing and sex. Adding to this, it implies that they drink thin gin. Gin is seen by the masses as classy and for relatively wealthy and proper people. Continuing to the last lines, “Jazz June. We Die soon.” Jazz jun refers to always partying and having fun. They can do this because they dropped out of school and have nothing better to do with their time. They then acknowledge that the lifestyle they lead will leave them with nothing but death at the end.
Throughout the whole poem, there is a strong sense of imagery throughout the entire poem. Most terms used are familiar and can be seen by people reading. The poem lives the life many young people go through and end up like the kids in the poem. There is no rhythmic beat but the reoccurring “We.” is the start of every sentence. The teller of the story is one of the group members given by the use of “We.”. The story by the end bring lots of question about today like, why did these drop out. Why are these actions seen as “Cool” by these kids and those around America?
We Real Cool
By Gwendolyn Brooks
The Pool Players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel.
We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.