“We Real Cool” is virtually ubiquitous in American schoolbooks, and when I was an American who read schoolbooks, I was unimpressed. I pretty much didn’t get what was so wonderful. I mean, there’s nothing TO get, right? Well now I’m older, and I know ever so much better.

First things first: It’s an extremely economical group portrait of these seven young men. Without really telling you anything about them, this poem tells you everything about them: their fears, their ambitions, who they think they are versus who they really are. (How did I know they were young men? It doesn’t say that. Yet you know.) The repeated “We” at the end of each line simultaneously displays a certain bravado and a distinct uncertainty about the group identity (or even, as an example of protesting too much, whether there’s a group identity at all. Who is this We they’re so insistent about?) Repeated as it is, the We gets smaller and smaller–the poet has in fact said that the “we” is supposed to be read in a small and uncertain way.

Oh, and if you ever run into someone who tells you that lineation and punctuation in a poem doesn’t matter, point to this poem to set them straight. If the “we” went at the beginning of each line, this would be a much worse poem, wouldn’t it? It would devolve simply into a list. With the “we” at the end, and unpunctuated, that word becomes sort of a question as well as a refrain.

Also, if there’s ever any doubt that rhythm can add meaning to a poem, again point here. The jazzy, syncopated rhythm of this poem is a huge part of the portrait of these guys. You can picture them thinking these thoughts, to the tune of whatever beat is in their heads.

Brooks got a little flak for the juxtaposition of “left school” and “die soon,” as some thought of this as the then middle-aged poet passing judgment on her subject (and thus her community). But I don’t think so. I think that these are just components of this swaggering yet fragile group identity that masks the individual fear and uncertainty that is nevertheless still present.

My comments are now longer than the poem by about a factor of fifty, so I’ll shut up now.

–Mark