Both poetry and prose employ language as their means of transmitting their messages and their themes. In prose, the language tends to lie in the background serving to transparently provide a window into the world it portrays and the meaning the passage contains. Poetry, however, as can be seen in "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks, uses the language itself as the means to express the content and significance of the work. Written in 1960, Brooks most likely intended for this poem to reflect the attitudes of African American youth of the time who decided to drop out of school and pursue a life of deviant behavior. In "We Real Cool", Brooks uses line structure and rhythm, simple and smooth diction (which reveal tone), and rhyme to convey her thoughts on the uncertainties that the subjects of the poem feel about themselves and their "coolness".
             The structure of the lines of "We Real Cool" repeatedly begins with the action (predicate) of the sentence and ends with the subject of the following sentence ("We"). This serves to emphasize how the poem should be read. The "We" in each sentence is not meant to have as much significance as the actual action of the sentence. Each line consists of two strong beats and then a final unstressed beat. This rhythm provides insight into the minds of the speakers. They perceive themselves as strong and aggressive but ultimately, as is seen in the final line of the poem ("Die soon"), they recognize the mortality and weakness of being "cool". Also, the weakness of the final "We" of every line represents the uncertainty of the speakers about their strength and power. Another important idea to note about the rhythm's strength is the group mentality which it promotes. Individual members of the "We" group have been assimilated into the whole as a body which thinks as a large organism and not as...