Simply because of the title I automatically assumed that the author was including herself in the happenings of the poem. Reading down the poem in a segmented but cumulative fashion, I formed notions that Ms. Gwendolyn Brooks and her “cool” counterparts were formerly very social, pool-playing, school-skipping, trouble-making, youngsters who lived for the moment and expected to pay for their actions sooner rather than later. It all made sense to me because a crowd that normally hangs out in pool halls, stays out late, and participates in under aged drinking would more than likely consider themselves “real cool”.
Brooks’ elucidation helped me to see that she simply wrote from the assumed point of view of some boys that she happened to see at a pool hall during school hours one day. She did not personally know these boys but from quick observations of the time, place, and aura of the pool players, she was able to verbalize a seemingly accurate persona for these guys. Although I was swallowed by initial confusion, I have learned to view this poem as a short, sweet success because of the background knowledge I now know and my new understanding the author’s symbolism. After hearing the explanation from the author herself, I learned that Ms. Brooks was not a mischievous youth but merely an observing passerby who attempted to convey the pool players’ self-perception.
As a side-note, it is interesting to me how wrong I was when I tried to guess this poem’s meaning because there is a possibility that our writer made the same type of incorrect assumptions when writing from the point of view of a person unfamiliar to her.
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