Gwendolyn Brooks We Real Cool Essay - 1347 Words

Gwendolyn Brooks We Real Cool The poem We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks is a stream of the thoughts of poor inner city African-Americans who have adopted a hoodlum lifestyle. Though many can have different interpretations of this poem, it is fair to look at the life and career or the works and influences of Gwendolyn Brooks. The life and art of the black American poet, Gwendolyn Brooks, began on June 7, 1917 when she was born in Topeka, Kansas. She was the first child of Keziah Corine Wims and David Anderson Brooks. When she was four, her family moved to their permanent residence on Champlin Avenue in Chicago. Her deep interest in poetry consumed much of her early life. For instance, Brooks began rhyming at the age of seven.†¦show more content†¦After a lifetime of skilled verse writing, Brooks died of cancer in December 2000 when she was 83 years old. The works of Gwendolyn Brooks has gone through several changes throughout her career. When she first published in 1945, she was eager to be understood by strangers. In her last two poetical collections, however, she has dumped that attitude and gone ?black?. Her change then led her from a major publishing house to smaller black ones. While some critics found an angrier tone in her work, elements of protest had always been present in her writing. Her poetry moves from traditional forms including sonnets, ballads, variations of the Chaucerian and Spenserian stanzas, and the rhythm of the blues to the most unrestricted free verse. To sum up, the popular forms of English poetry appear in her work, but there is some testing as she puts together lyric, narrative, and dramatic poetic forms. In her narrative poetry, the stories are simple but usually go beyond the restrictions of place. In her dramatic poetry, the characters are often memorable because they are everyday survivors not heroes. Her characters are drawn from the underclass of the nations black slums. Like many urban writers, Brooks has recorded the impact of city life. However, aside from most committed naturalists, she does not entirely blame the city for what happens to people. The city is simply an existing force with which people must deal with. The most dominant theme in Brooks?s work is theShow MoreRelatedWe Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks532 Words   |  2 PagesThe poem â€Å"We Real Cool†, written by Gwendolyn Brooks, is about a group of seven young boys who abandoned school to live the street life. They can’t wait to live a fun carefree life, drinking, partying and ditching all responsibility. Throughout this poem, Brooks is sending a clear message to her reader with the use of rhyme and imagery she creates a lasting impression showing that dropping out of school in order to embrace the street life amounts to nothing in the end. Brooks begins her poem withRead MoreWe Real Cool By Gwendolyn Brooks1151 Words   |  5 PagesTo understand and describe Gwendolyn Brooks poem â€Å"We Real Cool† the reader must know what the Pronoun we represent. The reader must also free his or her mind from any type of stereotypical thinking; in fact, if the reader finds it tough to let go of the stereotype thinking, he or she will have the wrong understanding of what this poem is about, and miss a great educational prospect of how different social classes think. If the poem is read once and the words are taken at face value, the reader willRead MoreWe Real Cool By Gwendolyn Brooks1075 Words   |  5 PagesGwendolyn Brooks wrote the poem â€Å"We Real Cool† in 1959 and was published in1960, right in the middle of the civil rights movement and only a couple years after the Brown v. Board of Education trial, which challenged racial segregation in schools. In the poem, a group of kid’s drops out of school all owing them to have a lot of free time on their hands which often leads to criminal activities. Many have interpreted this poem in different ways. One possible interpretation that I feel strong about isRead MoreThe Message of Gwendolyn Brooks We Real Cool536 Words   |  3 PagesThe Message of Gwendolyn Brooks We Real Cool We Real Cool is a short, yet powerful poem by Gwendolyn Brooks that sends a life learning message to its reader. The message Brooks is trying to send is that dropping out of school and roaming the streets is in fact not cool but in actuality a dead end street. Brooks conveys her message in an ironic manner, which is presented in the title of the poem. Before actually reading the 10 line poem the first thing that grabs the readers attentionRead MorePoem Analysis: We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks724 Words   |  3 PagesWe Real Cool(1960) by Gwendolyn Brooks. 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. This is a short poem with five stanzas each having two lines. The poem is short and the choice of words is concrete and targeted at the subject that the poet is striving to put forth. The poem is generally on the life of the pool players. It depicts the fast paced lifestyle of the pool playersRead MoreWe Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks: A Message for Troubled Youth749 Words   |  3 PagesIn Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem â€Å"We Real Cool† the speaker describes the life of seven troubled teenagers and the dire consequences that result from living a risky lifestyle. Brooks illustrates the lives of these teenagers using a variety of poetic devices and a unique form. The poem is quite short; only four stanzas, each being a two line couplet. Brooks’ intention was to send an important message to teenagers, her target audience for this poem. Gwendolyn Brooks was born on June 7, 1917 in Topeka, KansasRead MoreEssay about Analysis of We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks534 Words   |  3 PagesPoetry Essay â€Å"We Real Cool†, Gwendolyn Brooks The poem â€Å"We Real Cool† is a very powerful poem, although expressed with very few words. To me, this poem describes the bottom line of the well known â€Å"ghetto life†. It describes the desperate and what they need, other than the usual what they want, money. Without actually telling us all about the seven young men, it does tell us about them. The poem tells of the men’s fears, their ambitions, and who they think they are, versus who they reallyRead MoreComparing Gwendolyn Brooks We Real Cool and Robert Frosts Nothing979 Words   |  4 PagesFall From Youth Although there are a number of different facets regarding the careers and works of Gwendolyn Brooks and Robert Frost, there are a number of similarities between their respective poems We Real Cool and Nothing Gold Can Stay. These similarities become all the more apparent when one attempts to compare the imagery of these poems. A careful consideration of this comparison indicates that the imagery of each of these poems is preoccupied with the concept of time in various aspectsRead MoreThe poem, We Real Cool, by Gwendolyn Brooks speaks through the voice of a young clique who believes500 Words   |  2 Pagespoem, We Real Cool, by Gwendolyn Brooks speaks through the voice of a young clique who believes it is â€Å"real cool.† Using slang and simple language to depict the teenage voice in first person, Brooks’s narrators explain that they left school to stay out together late at night, hanging around pool halls, drinking, causing trouble, and meeting girls. Their lifestyle , though, will ultimately lead them to die at a young age. But, despite an early death, the narrator expresses that they are â€Å"real cool† becauseRead MorePoet, Gwendolyn Brooks Uses Social Issues to Connect with the Reader in â€Å"Fight First, Then Fiddle† and â€Å"We Real Cool†659 Words   |  3 Pages The same author Gwendolyn Brooks writes the poems â€Å"Fight First, Then Fiddle† and â€Å"We Real cool†. I am about to explain to you of how the author uses social issues through of the two poems I am referring to connect to her readers. The poem â€Å"We Real Cool†, by Gwendolyn Brooks was a great piece. I chose this poem because I could relate to the choice of words the author had chosen to use. The choice of words the author had chosen led me to believe the teens that the author described in her poem