We Real Cool

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Introduction “We Real Cool,” perhaps Brooks’ single best-known poem, subjects a similarly representative experience to an intricate technical and thematic scrutiny, at once loving and critical. The poem is only twenty-four words long, including eight repetitions of the word “we.” It is suggestive that the subtitle of “We Real Cool” specifies the presence of only seven pool players at the “Golden Shovel.” The eighth “we” suggests that poet and reader share, on some level, the desperation of the group-voice that Brooks transmits. The final sentence, “We/ die soon,” restates the carpe diem motif in the vernacular of Chicago’s South Side. Analysis This poem has a touch of freshness of youth mixed with carelessness and the rebellious zeal. It is a small couplet with great use of rhymes. On one level, “We Real Cool” appears simply to catalog the experiences of a group of dropouts content to “sing sin” in all available forms. A surprising ambiguity enters into the poem, however, revolving around the question of how to accent the word “we” which ends every line except the last one, p...

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