"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]
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.
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]
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.
Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks was an American poet, author, and teacher. Her work often dealt with the personal celebrations and struggles of ordinary people in her community. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry on May 1, 1950, for Annie Allen, making her the first African American to receive a Pulitzer Prize.
Rita Frances Dove is an American poet and essayist. From 1993 to 1995, she served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. She is the first African American to have been appointed since the position was created by an act of Congress in 1986 from the previous "consultant in poetry" position (1937–86). Dove also received an appointment as "special consultant in poetry" for the Library of Congress's bicentennial year from 1999 to 2000. Dove is the second African American to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1987, and she served as the Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2004 to 2006. Since 1989, she has been teaching at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where she held the chair of Commonwealth Professor of English from 1993 to 2020; as of 2020, she holds the chair of Henry Hoyns Professor of Creative Writing.
Dudley Randall was an African-American poet and poetry publisher from Detroit, Michigan. He founded a pioneering publishing company called Broadside Press in 1965, which published many leading African-American writers, among them Melvin Tolson, Sonia Sanchez, Audre Lorde, Gwendolyn Brooks, Etheridge Knight, Margaret Walker, and others.
James Emanuel was a poet and scholar from Alliance, Nebraska. Emanuel, who is ranked by some critics as one of the best and most neglected poets of the 20th century, published more than 300 poems, 13 individual books, an influential anthology of African-American literature, an autobiography, and more. He is also credited with creating a new literary genre, jazz-and-blues haiku, often read with musical accompaniment.
Jazz poetry has been defined as poetry that "demonstrates jazz-like rhythm or the feel of improvisation" and also as poetry that takes jazz music, musicians, or the jazz milieu as its subject. Some critics consider it a distinct genre though others consider the term to be merely descriptive. Jazz poetry has long been something of an "outsider" art form that exists somewhere outside the mainstream, having been conceived in the 1920s by African Americans, maintained in the 1950s by counterculture poets like those of the Beat generation, and adapted in modern times into hip-hop music and live poetry events known as poetry slams.
Keorapetse William Kgositsile, also known by his pen name Bra Willie, was a South African Tswana poet, journalist and political activist. An influential member of the African National Congress in the 1960s and 1970s, he was inaugurated as South Africa's National Poet Laureate in 2006. Kgositsile lived in exile in the United States from 1962 until 1975, the peak of his literary career. He made an extensive study of African-American literature and culture, becoming particularly interested in jazz. During the 1970s he was a central figure among African-American poets, encouraging interest in Africa as well as the practice of poetry as a performance art; he was well known for his readings in New York City jazz clubs. Kgositsile was one of the first to bridge the gap between African poetry and African-American poetry in the United States.
Félix Morisseau-Leroy was a Haitian writer who used Haitian Creole to write poetry and plays, the first significant writer to do so. By 1961 he succeeded in having Creole recognized as an official language of Haiti, after expanding its teaching in schools and use in creative literature. Morisseau also published works on French, Haitian Creole and Haitian French literature. He worked internationally, encouraging the development of national literature in post-colonial Ghana and Senegal. In 1981 he settled in Miami, Florida, where he was influential in uniting the Haitian community around Creole and encouraged its study in academia.
Michael Steven Harper was an American poet and English professor at Brown University, who was the Poet Laureate of Rhode Island from 1988 to 1993. His poetry was influenced by jazz and history.
Amiri Baraka, previously known as LeRoi Jones and Imamu Amear Baraka, was an American writer of poetry, drama, fiction, essays, and music criticism. He was the author of numerous books of poetry and taught at several universities, including the University at Buffalo and Stony Brook University. He received the PEN/Beyond Margins Award in 2008 for Tales of the Out and the Gone. Baraka's plays, poetry, and essays have been described by scholars as constituting defining texts for African-American culture.
Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni Jr. is an American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. One of the world's most well-known African-American poets, her work includes poetry anthologies, poetry recordings, and nonfiction essays, and covers topics ranging from race and social issues to children's literature. She has won numerous awards, including the Langston Hughes Medal and the NAACP Image Award. She has been nominated for a Grammy Award for her poetry album, The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection. Additionally, she was named as one of Oprah Winfrey's 25 "Living Legends". Giovanni is a member of The Wintergreen Women Writers Collective
"All in the golden afternoon" is the preface poem in Lewis Carroll's 1865 book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The introductory poem recalls the afternoon that he improvised the story about Alice in Wonderland while on a boat trip from Oxford to Godstow, for the benefit of the three Liddell sisters: Lorina Charlotte, Alice Pleasance, and Edith Mary. Alice gave her name to Carroll's main character.
Diana M. Vogel, known professionally as D. H. Melhem, was an American poet, novelist, and editor.
And Still I Rise is author Maya Angelou's third volume of poetry, published by Random House in 1978. It was published during one of the most productive periods in Angelou's career; she had written three autobiographies and published two other volumes of poetry up to that point. Angelou considered herself a poet and a playwright, but was best known for her seven autobiographies, especially her first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, although her poetry has also been successful. She began, early in her writing career, alternating the publication of an autobiography and a volume of poetry.
Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'fore I Diiie (1971) is the first collection of poems by African-American writer and poet Maya Angelou. Many of the poems in Diiie were originally song lyrics, written during Angelou's career as a night club performer, and recorded on two albums before the publication of Angelou's first autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969). Angelou considered herself a poet and a playwright, but is best known for her seven autobiographies. Early in her writing career she began a practice of alternating the publication of an autobiography and a volume of poetry. Although her poetry collections have been best-sellers, they have not received serious critical attention and are more interesting when read aloud.
Chicago literature is writing, primarily by writers born or living in Chicago, that reflects the culture of the city.
Maya Angelou, an African-American writer who is best known for her seven autobiographies, was also a prolific and successful poet. She has been called "the black woman's poet laureate", and her poems have been called the anthems of African Americans. Angelou studied and began writing poetry at a young age, and used poetry and other great literature to cope with trauma, as she described in her first and most well-known autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She became a poet after a series of occupations as a young adult, including as a cast member of a European tour of Porgy and Bess, and a performer of calypso music in nightclubs in the 1950s. Many of the songs she wrote during that period later found their way to her later poetry collections. She eventually gave up performing for a writing career.
Siobhan Campbell is an Irish poet and critic. She is the author of six poetry collections. Campbell has developed creative writing workshops for military veterans as well as story-gathering protocols for work with refugees. Her recent research into creative writing as social practice has led her to work with patients in palliative care. Educated at University College Dublin and at Lancaster University, Campbell also pursued post-graduate study at NYU and the New School, New York City. Campbell is on faculty at The Open University, Dept. of English.
"If We Must Die" is a poem by Jamaican-American writer Claude McKay (1890–1948) published in the July 1919 issue of The Liberator magazine. McKay wrote the poem in response to mob attacks by white Americans upon African-American communities during the Red Summer. The poem does not specifically reference any group of people, and has been used to represent many groups who are persecuted. It is considered one of McKay's most famous poems and was described by the poet Gwendolyn Brooks as one of the most famous poems of all time.
A golden shovel is a poetic form in which the last word of each line forms a second, pre-existing poem, to which the poet is paying homage.
"Mother to Son" is a 1922 poem written by Langston Hughes. The poem follows a mother speaking to her son about her life, which she says "ain't been no crystal stair". She first describes the struggles she has faced and then urges him to continue moving forward. It was referenced by Martin Luther King Jr. several times in his speeches during the civil rights movement, and has been analyzed by several critics, notably for its style and representation of the mother.