Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem "We Real Cool" identifies the struggle that Black American youths went through to define themselves in the late fifties and early sixties‚ in a society that was predominately trying to keep them oppressed. The poem portrays a group of young Black boys who hang out in a pool hall and conduct illegal activity instead of going to school with the rest of their peers. The boys are insecure about their role in society; they talk big so that they can hide behind their facade of being
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Gwendolyn Brooks’ first poem “Eventide” was first published in her local newspaper when she was just 13 years of age. She was being published regularly by the age of 17 in the Chicago Defender‚ a newspaper that was specifically dedicated to the African American population in Chicago. She carried on writing poetry and even a novel until her death in December of 2000. In an interview with Brooks by Paul M. Angle‚ an Illinois Historian she was asked how she became a writer; she explained that she loved
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Individuals choose not to go on adventures due to the fact they have witnessed‚ experienced‚ or sometimes even had that gut feeling of fear of the unknown. In the short story “Eveline” by James Joyce and in the poem “Sadie and Maud” by Gwendolyn Brooks‚ fear of the unknown and life’s happenings ruined certain individual’s life altering adventure. My own experience as a young adult immediately succeeding high school‚ debating on whether or not to move away for college has taught me that life is too
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Gwendolyn Brooks was an American author‚ poet and teacher. Her works reflected and were based off of struggles and celebrations of individuals in her community. One of her poems‚ We Real Cool‚ is quite short but has much substance. Although it was written in 1959‚ some can say that this poem can also be set in the Prohibition Era. The poem lines‚ “We real cool. We / Left school. We / Lurk late‚” the narrator is saying how cool they are and also shows some type of excitement are because they are in
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2012 The poem “We Real Cool” was written in the 1960’s by the poet Gwendolyn Brooks. This poem illustrates the quintessence of seven troubled adolescents who will eventually succumb to the unfortunate likelihood that life can render a young Africa American male living the life in the fast lane during that era. “We Real Cool” is an interpretation of a group of young men Gwendolyn saw in a pool hall. She stated that “I wondered how they felt about themselves‚ and I decided that they
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ideas out‚ and with that many authors and poets were born. Two that have heavily influenced the modern day are Gwendolyn Brooks and Robert Hayden‚ two African American poets. They both have made Americans think about life itself using interesting word pictures. Gwendolyn Brooks and Robert Hayden both have unique perspective in their poems “The Explorer” and “Frederick Douglass”‚ in Brooks poem she more focuses on there is no safe place to ever be found‚ in Hayden’s piece‚ the central theme is that
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Consequences of Ignorance and Isolation Tenacious foolishness often provides tremendous detriment to the subject. In William Wordsworth’s “The World Is Too Much with Us” and Gwendolyn Brooks’s “We Real Cool‚” the foolish are lamented for their ignorant ways that ultimately cost them dearly. While the bases for their actions lie within the contexts of these poems‚ the mainspring‚ upon which the behaviors depicted in these poems are built‚ is a compulsion to isolate. Ignorance may be bliss‚ but it
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In Gwendolyn Brooks “We Real Cool” we are given a four stanza couplet that shows the daily activities of seven young men that dropped out of school. What I found really fitting in this poem was how the rhythm of the poem related well to the lifestyle of these young men. Each line comes at the reader quickly. Much like the rapid fire delivery of the lines in the poem‚ these characters also live life quickly both literally and metaphorical. The poem is spontaneous as are the characters and each
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where they should be. Women of past centuries had to deal so much turmoil and face so much adversity‚ especially women of color. The women who I would call my auntie or grandma are bursting with stories that help to explain why they are fearless. Gwendolyn Brooks is a woman who exemplifies class and fearlessness‚ and it is an honor to have researched her. In relation to class‚ she has the quick wit and way with words that we studied with Dorothy Parker‚ and gives off a maternal comfort that I felt when
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takes to “let go.” Similarly‚ “In Honor of David Anderson Brooks‚ My Father” by Gwendolyn Brooks‚ the meaning of the poem is about the narrator learning to let go of the sorrow that the death of her father caused. Though both poems share similar themes‚ each speaker’s outlook on life‚ style of poetry‚ and the way in which they convey the concepts of poetry‚ strongly differ. Despite the fact that both Elizabeth Bishop and Gwendolyn Brooks won Pulitzer Prizes‚ both took life routes which were
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