What's Cooler than Being Cool? Ice Cold.

I wanted to use this post to address the poem by Gwendolyn Brooks We Real Cool -

This poem drives me absolutely crazy with how many possible meanings each line could have. 

Let's look at the beginning: Why are there seven guys playing pool? You can fit up to about four people on one table in order to have a good game of pool, so there is an odd man out - why is the odd man out even present? After listening to the reading by Brooks on poets.org, I found that there were actually seven people she passed. Also the Golden Shovel really stands out to me, as I said in class, because of the simplicity of an item like a shovel being golden, making it worth so much more than it actually is worth. 

Then there is the rest of the poem. I like the idea of the emphasis being put the other words except for 'we'. When Brooks reads her poem, the word we is almost inaudible - this gives me the idea that the boys are not so much concerned about who they are but what they do, which goes perfectly with the stereotype of the 'rebel' or 'cool' personality. These boys are "real cool" according to Brooks, who skip school and thin gin. Thinning gin is also thought provoking - are they drinking a lot of gin or are they thinning it with water in order to peddle it, perhaps sell some quick gin in order to make a few bucks to support other habits?

Jazzing June really gave me a laugh in class, because I had no idea that jazz had at one point a sexual connotation, but thinking about it now I suppose that is not much of a surprise considering the whole "jazz scene" which is very much sexually charged. 

My favourite line from the poem is definitely "We sing sin" because it reminds me for some reason of the song "Only the Good Die Young" by Billy Joel. The line that comes to mind is "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saint" following that up with "sinners have much more fun". That song contradicts the last line of the poem because "only the good die young" according to Billy, but to Brooks "We die soon" after such sinning.

THE POOL PLAYERS. 

SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL. 

We real cool. We 

Left school. We 

Lurk late. We 

Strike straight. We 

Sing sin. We 

Thin gin. We 

Jazz June. We 

Die soon. 

The reading of the poem can be found here : 

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15433

Lastly I cannot help but comment on how strikingly similar Gwendolyn Brooks is to Bill Cosby

      

Can't you see it?

Happy Wednesday! 

Cat