{"id":107,"date":"2025-08-17T12:07:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T12:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/?page_id=107"},"modified":"2025-12-01T12:47:29","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T12:47:29","slug":"gwendolyn-brooks-we-real-cool-1960","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fys-pinsker\/texts\/gwendolyn-brooks-we-real-cool-1960\/","title":{"rendered":"Gwendolyn Brooks, \u201cWe Real Cool\u201d (1960)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Brooks\"<\/a>
Gwendolyn Brooks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gwendolyn Brooks<\/a> (1917\u20132000) grew up in Chicago and began publishing poems as a teenager.\u00a0 She received early encouragement from Langston Hughes. Eventually, Brooks published more than twenty books of poetry, including one volume in 1949 that won the Pulitzer Prize –the first Pulitzer in any category awarded to an African American writer.\u00a0 The short poem, “We Real Cool,” appeared in 1960, capturing the rebellious spirit of mid-twentieth century youth and also the tension in race relations during the civil rights era.\u00a0 Brooks described being compelled to write this verse after seeing a Chicago pool hall crowded during the day with black teenage boys and wondering how they felt about their lives and future.\u00a0 The voice, and the jazz-like beat, in the poem, is theirs.\u00a0 The question for the reader is what did she mean by it?\u00a0 Edward Hirsch calls Brooks a poet capable of being “both empathetic and excoriating at the same time” (Heart of American Poetry,<\/em> 283).\u00a0 During\u00a0the 1960s and 1970s, Brooks became active in the Black Arts and Black Power movements<\/a> and renounced some of her earlier work and influences.\u00a0 Brooks visited Dickinson College and read her poetry on campus in 1974.\u00a0 In the 1980s, she was appointed as the nation’s poet laureate by the Librarian of Congress.\u00a0 She died in 2000.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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We Real Cool<\/strong><\/div>\n
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\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0THE POOL PLAYERS.\u00a0<\/span>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.<\/span><\/p>\n

We real cool. We<\/span>
\nLeft school. We<\/span><\/p>\n

Lurk late. We<\/span>
\nStrike straight. We<\/span><\/p>\n

Sing sin. We<\/span>
\nThin gin. We<\/span><\/p>\n

Jazz June. We<\/span>
\nDie soon.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n