Gwendolyn Brooks

"We Real Cool"

 

 

Gwendolyn Brooks was inspired by seven young boys she noticed in a pool hall while walking around her town of Chicago. To Gwendolyn, they looked very young- too young to be there and should have been in school. This caught her eye attention so significantly that she decided to write  a poem about it.

 

The poem is written in the perspective of the seven young boys in the pool hall, but you never actually feel like they are are talking while reading the poem. The repetitive use o the the word "we" probably signfies that the boys have arrived and they feel some sense of pride as they are enjoying themsleves in the pool hall. As you're rading he poem, the tone seems to be laid- back and/or jazzy but the final line " We die soon" changes the mood completely.