Analysis of Gwendolyn Brooks' "We Real Cool"
            
             Gwendolyn Brooks grew up in the slums of Chicago, and most of her poetry came from her experiences living there (Mootry and Smith 6). Among those experiences, she noticed a disturbing trend of young black males dropping out of school and getting into trouble on the tough city streets. Brooks wrote "We Real Cool" as a reaction to seeing what came of these peoples' lives during the struggle for civil rights in the United States in the 1960s. The poem is intended to both raise awareness of the growing problems facing urban youth and to speak directly to them to possibly spurn some sort of change in their thinking patterns (Mootry and Smith 5). Through a variety of literary devices, Brooks does a phenomenal job in addressing the issues at hand. A thorough explication of "We Real Cool" proves that the style, personae, tone and diction that Brooks uses to tell the poem make for an effective way to show the consequences of rebellious behavior among African-American males in the 1960s.
             The poem is one of the shortest poems in The Bean Eaters, with only 10 lines – two introductory lines set off from eight more lines, which are divided into four stanzas. Therefore, it doesn't require a young reader with a low attention span and a low level of interest in poetry to invest much time or effort to read through it. Brooks also utilizes rhyming couplets, which might make it easier to read than a poem in blank verse because the rhymes give the poem a sense of pacing and flow. Still, perhaps the most important thing to examine carefully, keeping in mind that this poem was aimed at young black males in the 1960s, is Brooks' word choice. Through diction, the style of the poem is legitimized; the personae come alive; and the tone is established.
             The title of the poem is the first indication of the audience that Brooks is trying to reach. &q...