Poem Analysis: We Real Cool By Gwendolyn Brooks

In Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem “We Real Cool” there are several aspects of the poem that work together to present an interesting scene. The most outstanding characteristic I found was how the two beginning lines of the poem “THE POOL PLAYERS,” and “SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL” are written to look like stage directions as they are the only two lines that are written entirely in capital letters and there is a large amount of space separating those lines from the rest of the poem as we would see in a written play. This immediately gives the reader the sense that the setting/scene of this particular poem is artificial or staged in a way and the pool players are going to put on a show for the audience. By writing the first two lines to look that way Brooks forces the reader’s eye to follow the direction of the poem and to understand that what is happening inside the pool hall may not be an authentic moment but in fact a staged one. This dramatically changes the reading of the …show more content…
There is the appearance of the scene in the pool hall which at first glance seems like a normal everyday occurrence but is distorted by the stage direction like lines placed at the top which again suggest to us that this is in fact not a natural moment but a deliberately made up one that we were supposed to see. It also focuses on the appearance of the pool players who seem to be telling us, arrogantly I might add, about all of the “cool” if not shady things that they do because they refuse to go to school or conform to societal norms. The very cool and structured form and language of the poem however, along with the toughness of the pool players is broken by the very last stanza “We Die soon,” (7-8) as it is the only vulnerable moment in the poem that snaps the audience out of its trance state to realize that while the players feign control in their lives they in fact have none and their arrogance turns to