Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) is considered to be part of the Black Arts Movement. These poems are associated with the Black Power movement where people "grew frustrated with the pace of the changes enacted by the Civil Rights Movement" and tend to be aggressive and politically-powered challenges to white establishments (Literary Movements Review).

This short poem has a very powerful message behind it. It can be interpreted to be from the point of view of a teenager (since she refers to school and gin) who basically lives day-by-day on the streets, The speaker doesn't care about school and seems carefree and happy and "cool". But he comes to realize that things around him are actually bad, and this is reflected in the last line "we die soon." This is Brooks' call to action to show that the quality of life had not yet improved despite the Civil Rights Movement, and that's how this fits into the Black Arts Movement category of poetry.

We Real Cool	Buy the CD
by Gwendolyn Brooks
00:00 02:14
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.

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