Rhythm in Gwendolyn Brook's "We real cool"

 

In "We real cool", poem by Gwendolyn Brooks, the theme is rebellion and its consequences. A group of seven boys decides to play pool while skipping school, drinking and staying up late. We can see a heavy repetition of "We" to convey the unity of this small group of individuals. It feels like the reader is following the group's fall into a rabbit's hole. "We" is intentionally positioned at the end of almost every verse to keep the reader's expectations suspended for the next wrong decision the boys could make. The author's decision not to use punctuation at the end of the verse makes this brief poem a quick read without a pause, symbolizing the shortness of the protagonists' lives. The poet uses literary devices such as alliteration ( "real cool. Left school", "Lurk late. Strike straight.", "Sing sin. Thin gin."), repetition ("We" at the end of every verse), consonance (repetition of "n" in the verse "We sing sin. We thin gin."), and rhyme, among others.

-Constantin