We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks

We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks

                I think this poem is a great example of how a few words and say lot. The title alone, “We Real Cool”, sounds like a proclamation of swag by these, I guess, cool dudes. I guess they wouldn’t have spoken like that if they didn’t “[leave] school”. Perhaps it’s the poem’s way of creatively saying the cliche “Stay in School”.  

                The two lines before the poem cryptically set the scenario I think. For one, it revealed the “We” of “We Real Cool”. Either there were seven of them at “the Golden Shovel”; or it was seven o’clock (pm, I assume) when these cool people “lurk[ed] late” at the “Shovel”. “The Golden Shovel”, where they play pool, might be a bar of sorts; “pool” gives off a bar atmosphere, I think. Like the total un-cool square that I am, “Die soon” was a really satisfying conclusion to the cool ones’ fate. While all the cool people just party every weekend while I stayed at home like the nerd that I am; the "Die soon" is really reassuring. Whatever gets me through the day.