Before we listened to any parts of the poem, “We Real Cool”,
I made the assumption that the poem would be about love. I guessed love because
it is a common theme in poetry. But once I heard the title, I changed my mind,
thinking that the poem would have to do with social class or interrelationships
because of the statement asserting that the speaker was “cool.”
The poem began with an image of seven people playing pool at
a pub of some sort. Once I got to the “we real cool, we left school” line, I
began to picture immature, naïve, young, students; the stereotypical group of
kids who try to prove how ‘cool’ they are to society. But as the poem
continued, I began to pick up a time lapse of some sort, where the rest of the
poem actually describes the rest of these kids lives and their outlook on life.
I derived these thoughts from the change in theme between each stanza. The
beginning stanza, as mentioned earlier, describes immature school kids trying
to prove themselves to be something else, but as the poem goes on, these boys
lead a life of sin and gin, hinting at sexual innuendos and use of drugs or
alcohol, revealing their young adulthood and their interest in wild life. The
poem then turns a bit dark in that it mentions death, in the line “die soon.”
The author purposefully included that last lie to hint at the theme live your
life, because life is indeed too short.
After we listened to Gwendolyn Brooks explain the meaning of
her own poem, I understood her purpose completely, because it matched the first
assumption I made about the beginning of the poem, about the kids trying to be
cool. I also believe that my full interpretation is valid because both her
interpretations and mine are supported by the idea of living your life the way you
want to.
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