We Real Cool

"We Real Cool" is a poem written in 1959 by poet Gwendolyn Brooks and published in her 1960 book The Bean Eaters, her third collection of poetry. The poem has been featured on broadsides, re-printed in literature textbooks and is widely studied in literature classes. It is cited as "one of the most celebrated examples of jazz poetry".[1][2][3]

This article is about the poem. For the book, see We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity.

It consists of four verses of two rhyming lines each. The final word in most lines is "we". The next line describes something that "we" do, such as play pool or drop out of school. Brooks has said that the "we"s are meant to be said softly, as though the protagonists in the poem are questioning the validity of their existence.[4] The last lines of the poem, "We / Die soon," indicate the climax, which comes as a surprise to the boasts that have been made previously. It also suggests a moment of self-awareness about the choices that the players have made. The poem also contains references to the seven deadly sins.

Origin
Young African-American men at a pool hall in Clarksdale, Mississippi, 1939.

In an interview Brooks stated that her inspiration for the poem came from her walking in her community and passing a pool hall full of boys. When considering this she thought to herself “I wonder how they feel about themselves?” Instead of wondering about why they were not in school, Brooks captured this scene and turned it into the seven pool players at the Golden Shovel.[5]

Themes and meaning

The poem covers a multitude of themes despite its short length, some including rebellion and youth. The unique structure offers a subtitle at the beginning of the poem where Brooks writes "The Pool Players / Seven at the Golden Shovel". This gives the poem its characters and setting.

Brooks also said that the seven pool players in the poem are fighting the establishment with their rebellious actions. She states that the establishment is represented by the month of June. In the same interview, Brooks explains how the poem has even been banned in some areas due to the use of the word "jazz" due to a perceived sexual nature — which, Brooks said, was not her intention, as she simply intended for it to represent music.[5]

The poem inspired Terrance Hayes' creation of the poetic form "golden shovel".

The poem was printed in the booklet of Chicago metalcore band The Killing Tree's 2003 We Sing Sin, whose title is a reference to the poem.

It is referenced in the song "We Real Cool" by the band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds on their 2013 album Push the Sky Away.

The band The Jazz June takes their name from this poem.

The poem is featured in Dominique Morisseau's 2017 play Pipeline.[6]

The poem is referenced in Bruce Springsteen's song "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)."

The poem is heavily referenced in Lucky Boys Confusion's song "Gwendolyn B. Sings Sin from the Album "Growing Out Of It""

The poem is referenced as the title of bell hooks's book We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity

References
  1. Kimmelman, Burt; Cone, Temple; Huff, Randall (2008). The Facts on File Companion to American Poetry. Facts On File. p. 627. ISBN 978-0-8160-6950-7.
  2. Jones, Meta DuEwa (2000). African-American Jazz Poetry: Orality, Prosody and Performance. Stanford University. pp. 52, 56.
  3. Jones, Meta DuEwa (2011). The Muse is Music: Jazz Poetry from the Harlem Renaissance to Spoken Word. University of Illinois Press. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-252-03621-7.
  4. Brooks, Gwendolyn; Stavros, George (1970). "An Interview with Gwendolyn Brooks". Contemporary Literature. 11 (1): 1–20. doi:10.2307/1207502. JSTOR 1207502.
  5. Robert Ricardo Reese (2013-11-01), Gwendolyn Brooks reads We Real Cool, archived from the original on 2021-12-14, retrieved 2016-10-31
  6. Russo, Robert (27 August 2017). "REVIEW: We Die Soon – Morisseau's "Pipeline"". Stage Left. Retrieved 24 September 2019.
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