The counterculture would not see the poem in this way at all. These seven are people who, as “Gary Smith says, live ‘in defiance of moral and social conformity and their own fate.’ And it is the act of defiance that gives members of the counterculture their sense of identity” (Sarnowski). What the dominant culture says not to do, the counterculture will do in order to be different from the dominant culture. When the seven say “We real cool” at the beginning of the poem, they are trying to show that their identity is separate from the dominant and uncool culture. The rest of the poem becomes a list of the acts that demonstrates what they perceive to be cool. When the seven say they have “Left school,” they have expressed their rejection of the
