Gwendolyn Brooks 'Poem We Real Cool'
The poem “American Hero” by Essex Hemphill, is about a competitive match of basketball, however, towards the end the author describes a social denial from other neighborhoods that despise his team. To convey his feelings, the author’s tone in the beginning of the poem is thrilling as it stimulates the feeling of playing competitively in a game of basketball when reading until the game is over when the tone gets wretched as the thought of being denied by the opposing team’s school sinks in to the author’s mind. Furthermore, the tone and the use imagery are used to convey the sense of being in the game and knowing the environment in this tense basketball game. An example of this is on lines 5-9, it states “It’s a shimmering club light and I’m
"We Real Cool" is told through the point of view of a group of wayward adolescents. The stanza
When a new pool table was introduced to the town Harold saw the perfect setup to ensnare them saying, “Pockets mark the difference between a gentleman and a bum with a capital ‘B’ and that rhymes with ‘P’ and that stands for pool!” As well as “Ya gotta find a way to keep the young ones moral after school!” Making the people think that their sons were being reckless with their time and definitely needed something to better occupy it. And Harold had just the thing for them, a boys band. Harold’s only problem was the town’s music teacher Miss Marian Paroo.
In paragraph #66 the boys are walking across the bridge connecting Brooklyn and New Jersey. They had to cross the bridge to get to where the wanted to camp in what they called “country”. The text says “ Every few paces Horse would shout hold it and readjust his mattress”. Then in paragraph #99 he sees the other side of the bridge. After that he says “race you there.”
In the poem, Casey at the Bat by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, a baseball team from the town of Mudville was trailing their opponents 4-2 in the final inning of a game. The fans’ notions of the game’s outcome weren’t good because various players (Cooney and Borrows) were out at first base; and the next two players up to bat were seen as lousy. The third player in line to bat, however, was a star player of the team; Casey, on whom they would bet were he up to bat. To the audience’s pleasant surprise, the two lousy players (Flynn and Jimmy Blake) batted well and made it to second and third bases. The crowd was ecstatic that Casey was finally up and their team once more had a chance to win.
We Real Cool The poem “We Real Cool” is written by Gwendolyn Brooks the poem is about seven young men at a pool hall trying to convince themselves and others that they are truly cool. They are trying to do all of the things that people that they deem as “cool” do. The poem is comprised of five, two-line, stanzas and is written from the perspective of seven young men.
Flick’s basketball career and skills went to waste. He regrets it all went to waste. The use personification, metaphors, and imagery give the poem its meaning. An example of personification is in line seven and says” Flick stands tall among the idiot pumps—.“ It gives pumps a human characteristic.
In the poem one of the things that really stood out was the quote, “...how can you hold your ground if everyone around you wants to bury you beneath it?” (Koyczan). This quote symbolism how everyone can make you feel like you are nothing. With the power that they have over you it can make you have low self esteem. With the low self
The third and fourth stanza show him becoming much more loose in his presentation of thoughts, while also having a lot of slashes. In these lines, he is describing the different places in which people gather together to watch the stickball team and the Saturday evening gang-fights. The use of the slash in these lines seem to show clearly here that he isn’t always certain if particular things are supposed to go together, thus giving space between those thoughts and also giving what seems to be alternatives to the ideas presented previously. Although there is a very similar sense in which these two places provide a disconnect from society to watch these forms of entertainment, both serve a different purpose and thus are given space to allow themselves to live within their own being. The humoristic tone also becomes a bit more frequent within these stanzas as he provides the self-deprecating name of the stickball team, being “‘the new york junkies’”, a play on words of the name New York Yankees.
Whereas Douglass dangerously strived to attain knowledge and education, the characters in We Real Cool (18) don’t want to be educated nor enlightened and even boast about their ignorance. In merely 24 lines, We Real Cool describes the fateful lives of seven pool players. While others might say that the language of the poem gives off a celebratory attitude, I think its tone rings of insecurity, arrogance and even defiance, particularly with the repeated usage of the word “we.” The first line of the poem, “We real cool” shows the level of education of the boys, which presumably isn’t very much, followed by “We left school” which implies the boys dropped out of school and don’t even value education.
Symbolically, the game of pool shows the struggles within the Emerson’s relationship. The relationship is illustrated as a lost cause and dragged on, when the narrator is exhausted, yet still continues to stay in the relationship. She fears that one day her partner will leave her.
The poem We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks focuses on what activities the troubled group of seven teenagers partake in to make apeal cool. The symbolism, imagery and tone shown in, “We Real Cool” illustrates how losing one’s identity to become part of a uncaring group in adolescence and social norms will lead one to an early visit to the grave. Gwendolyn uses symbolism throughout her poem to get the readers to perceive the poem in an abstract way. In the subtitle, the word golden symbolises summer, youth and daytime. This becomes an ironic name for the pool hall, because the wandering, carefree lives of the pool players seem to be anything but golden.
cummings was not as direct as Fitzgerald in his writing. Many of his poems are left open to interpretation. This piece could be directed towards lonely young men in small towns who don’t take the time from their busy lives for love or let time slip past them so quickly that when they’re finally ready to settle down, it’s too
Normally youths do not follow every rule, guideline, or instruction given to them; however, the pool players in the poem “We Real Cool”
The African-American culture of storytelling is highlighted in both pieces of poetry. Each speaker in the poems is telling a story or anecdote. The point of Mother to Son is to impart wisdom to her son. In We Real Cool, the point is similar: to disclose the demented wisdom of the pool players. The difference between the two is not the time period, the country of origin, or any other part of culture, but the standard of ethics.
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