Analysis Of We Real Cool By Gwendolyn Brooks

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We Real Cool
“We Real Cool” is a famous poem which is concerned with the African American experience written in the year of 1959 by the poet Gwendolyn Brooks. This poem presents the reality that a lot of the African youth have to be faced with. As one of the most outstanding poems which are about the confusion and miserable destiny for the African Americans, this poem uses the simple words as well as the sentence structures to present and explain her deep thoughts.(Dickson, 1983) “We Real Cool” is quite worth reading for the readers who have the desire tohave an understanding about the identity of the young blacks in the United States.
This poem is very short which only has eight lines in all. The words and sentences are also very simple as well as easy to understand to a large extent. In the surface, the poem is justdescribing some young black boys playing at the pool named as the “The Golden Shovel”, which seems very simple. However, it is very complicated than what it seems to be in the surface if the readers cannot connect the background with the poem together. This poem has the deep meaning under theseemingly simple words. This poem was written in the year of 1959 which was among the period of the civil right movement. (Cummings, 2005)Thesegregation of the schools for theAfricanAmericas still has the big influence on the black youths. Thesegregationhas not only separates theblack youth and the white youths, but also makes them feel quite frustrated about their social identities and their future. This poem deals with this topic under this topic. The poem describes the scene that a gang of black youth is playing at the pool. They sing and dance. All of these happened after they decided to drop out of their school. They...

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...s to show the authors’ deep meaning. I always feel surprised and amazed when I read the poems which can takes advantages of the several words to either create a vivid picture in the readers’ mind or convey the deep meaning, or encourage people to do something meaningful and never waste the valuable time.A good poem should tell peoplesomethingimportant.

Reference
Brooks, Gwendolyn. "We Real Cool."The Norton Anthology of Poetry.Ed. Margaret Ferguson.New York: Norton, 2005. 999-1000.

Cummings, Allison. "Public Subjects: Race and the Critical Reception of Gwendolyn Brooks, Erica Hunt, and Harryette Mullen." Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 26.2 (2005): 3- 36.

Dickson, L. L. "'Keep It in the Head': Jazz Elements in Modern Black American Poetry." Melus 10.1 (Spring 1983) 29-37.

Smith, Gary. "Brooks's We Real Cool." Explicator 43.2 (1985) 49-50.

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