Monday, January 28, 2013

Jake Bustamante Blog #2

Upon just hearing the title of the poem, I felt that the work would be about feeling accepted in a group setting. The first stanza didn't give me much of an idea of the theme of the poem, but it left me thinking of a scene involving seven young boys playing a a game of pool. I immediately thought of young men playing pool when put into context with the title because I feel that young men were the ones trying to be "cool". The next stanza reinforced the idea that about the characters being young men because they left school and formed a sense of unity in saying "We real cool.". The group behavior aspect suggests that their deviation from normal activity for other kids their age (going to school) is too mundane and therefore boring. In order to break the cycle of a boring life, they disrupt their usual habits by skipping school entirely. The next stanza made me think immediately of trouble because that is what most people think of when they hear about groups of young people gathered in the streets. Using words with negative connotation like "lurk" and "strike" left me thinking that the group causes trouble at night by attacking people. In a group setting, when a deviation occurs, the path of action becomes exponentially more deviated, in this case causing the young men to attack people. "We sing sin We thin gin" is the young mens' experience of being together and away from the schools from which they felt they escaped. Singing and drinking became the way the young men passed their time together in the night. Finally, the last stanza puts the reason behind all of their actions. They acted the way they did because life is better to be lived while you are young and free rather than young and imprisoned by school.

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