Brandon Kang Journal 2

Brandon Kang Journal #2

My Initial response to the poem that we read is class was that it was going to be about essays and writing, because we were talking about writing essays in class. I then learned that we were going essay the poem “We Real Cool.” Then I thought the poem that we were going to read in class was about friendship and hanging out with friends. I thought the title implied it was going to talk about what a group kids did for fun and why they talk pleasure in doing what they were doing. The first sentence of the poem confirmed my thoughts about the poem being about friendship, but later on I learned that the poem was about a different subject. After the first line of the poem, I found myself puzzled about the topic of the essay. I didn’t understand the meaning of the next line which was “Seven at the Golden Shovel.” The sentence “We real cool” confirmed my earlier thoughts, but the rest of the poem left me confused about the meaning and purpose of the poem. The sentences “We Left School” and “We Lurk late” were statements that agreed about my initial thoughts of the poem being about hanging out. The rest of the poem confused me, because it was talking about doing bad things like singing sin, drinking gin, and dying soon. The constant repetition of the word “we” made me think the poem was about friendship. The recording that we listen to class explained that she wrote the poem after seeing kids skipping school to play pool and what there thought and intentions were. I didn’t completely understand the meaning or purpose of the poem until the video explained what the poem was about and why Gwendolyn Brooks wrote the poem.