An Analysis Of We Real Cool And Summer Words Of A Sistuh Addict

Gwendolyn Brooks and Sonia Sanchez, in their poems “We Real Cool” and “Summer Words of a Sistuh Addict”, are both alike in their idea of dealing with troubled youth. Brooks discusses in her poem “We Real Cool” rebellious pool-playing youth that “sing sin” (Line 5) and “thin gin.” (Line 6) The whole poem centers around disturbed youth. The narrator in Sonia Sanchez’s poem “Summer Words of a Sistuh Addict”, is also a disturbed young woman who is addicted to heroin, and seems to live a rather rebellious lifestyle. In addition, both of these poems use tone via word choice, sentence structure, and meter in order to vividly describe the scenarios in their poems, and to impact their reader. However, both poets use the literary elements mentioned above differently in their poems. Gwendolyn Brooks in “We Real Cool” develops an ironic, sarcastic tone through specific word choice. The poem begins with the phrase “We real cool” (Line 1) so immediately, the reader knows that these pool playing buddies define themselves as “cool”. In their minds, they are the epitomes of

This gives Sanchez liberty to create unique meter of her own which she did in many lines in her poem. In every single line there is a variation of feet, and none of the lines follow a certain rhythm. This disorganization in meter and rhythm reflects the narrator’s own tumultuous life. The reader knows that the narrator struggles with a difficult relationship with her mom, and to release those feelings of anger towards her, she smoke heroin. Thus, the disorganized meter and rhythms sound just like the narrator’s own life. The meter also becomes more disorderly as the narrator becomes more involved in frenzied, drug-related activity. In line fourteen, the sentence reads “I did it. Uh. Huh. I did it. Uh huh.” Clearly, Sanchez used free verse with no meter to mirror the narrator’s own troubled