We Real Cool

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.

I was really intrigued by this poem despite its simplicity. Within these eight lines, Brooks portrays seven pool players who enjoy their lives, and pay for it at the end. The language imitates the language a real “pool player” might use and the colorful language in the beginning make it all the more stunning when the reader is given a very flat, unglamorous, but realistic end. 

Alliteration: “Lurk late”, “strike straight”, “sing sin” and “jazz June”. 

Anaphora: At the end of each sentence, “we” is an example of anaphora. This foreshadows the abruptness of the shocking end to this poem, where there is no “we” after “die soon.” According to an interview with Brooks, she chose to end each line with “we” to show their belief in their strong sense of identity, and the actual uncertainty in who they are. http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/brooks/werealcool.htm

Parallelism: “Jazz June” and “Die soon” both are structured similarly to emphasize the larger disparity between them. 

Couplet: The two lines rhyme, but the difference is that each line is enjambed.