I Only Did This to Finish Reading a Paper

Mauricia Smith
December 1, 2012
3b
“We Old Dudes” by Joan Murray/”We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks

In both of these Poems, the poets both capture almost the same topic but different point of views. In “We Real Cool”, the poet talks about a group of African American boys who think of themselves as cool and think that they don’t have to go to school, they can stay out as late as they can drink, shoot pool and basically waste the rest of their time on earth doing these things. In contrast, in “We Old Dudes” the subjects are older Caucasian or Hispanic men who are retired who spend most of their time golfing all day and buying anything they want just to have. They are enjoying their life for the rest of their days. Murray and Brooks both use the same poetic style. They both have 2 lines in each stanza. For example, In “We Real Cool” it says:” We real cool. We left school”. And in “We Old Dudes” it says: “We old dudes. We white shoes”. The title in both poems are self-explanatory because they explain what the poems are about while other poems have an off the wall name and the poem is about something totally different. The thing that makes both of the poems alike is that they both serve the same purpose in explaining the lives of two different people but the common chain between the both of them is that one is young and the other is old. The both of them play off of each other in the sense that the poem about the younger generation who are rushing through their lives skipping school, staying out late shooting pool and dying before their time. While in the old one, the men are enjoying their lives and living it to the fullest knowing they are not going to live forever. We Real Cool and We Old Dudes are alike in that they both have end rhymes. For example, in “We Real Cool”, the end rhyme is “cool, school; late, straight; sin, gin; June, soon”. In “We Old Dudes, the end rhyme are “dudes, shoes; ball, mall; teeth, beach; red, dead”. Another similarity in the tone of both poems is that the two poets use simple diction because it was like they were talking to someone but getting their message across in a song. There technically weren’t any shifts until at the end where it says “We die soon”, “We soon dead”. In conclusion, in the two poems, “We Real Cool”, by Gwendolyn Brooks and “We Old Dudes” by Joan Murray are alike in that they both describe the life of two different races and lifestyles. However, with these minor differences, the poems were alike in that they serve the same purpose in getting message across and comparing the life of teen boys going down the path of destruction too soon and they might end up dying before their time. On the other hand, the other poem reflects the lives of men who are of older age who are living the way that they should be and just taking it one day at a time like they should be but also face the fact that they are of an older age and will die soon as well.