Poetry Blog

The poem I chose: We real cool

  The Pool Players.
        Seven at the Golden Shovel.

           We real cool. We   

            Left school. We

            Lurk late. We

            Strike straight. We

            Sing sin. We   

            Thin gin. We

            Jazz June. We   

            Die soon.

   In my comprehension, this poem talks about a normal life for those young people. First, When he said they were cool and they left school, it showed that they were young people, who did not finish their college or high school. Then they left school, it was like a gang who did not want to study and just wanted to hang out at night at some entertainment venue. Then in the next stanza, it talked about "pool". They said that they lurk late and they strike straight, it stated that they usually stayed out late at night, and they were really good at the pool games, because it mentioned that they strike straight. It means that that's pretty much what they do normally, and they had played or practice this games for a long time, which means that they left school for a long time. Later on in the third stanza, "We Sing sin. We Thin gin", it talked about they celebrated for this sin. They knew that they should not always do things like this, but they were addicted to this. The last stanza said: "Jazz June. We Die soon." Jazz is a type of music, and breaking the rule of music sometimes is fine in Jazz. I think this represents that they were unconstrained, nobodies is going to discipline them; and they will die soon, because of this rotten life.

   

   This poem contains of four stanzas. It has mostly two sentences in each stanza, why I said mostly because this is in enjambment, means that lines go from one to another one without using any punctuation. In each line, it ends with "we". The we sound has an ending rhyme. Also, the word we was used a lot in the poem. It emphasizes that they were a group of people. Probably it mentioned all the people who left the school. Then, the word "cool" and school" both had a "ool" sound, which becomes an rhyme. The word "late" and "straight" all has a same "a" sound. This is a assonance, which means the repetition of the vowel sounds. In the third stanza, "sing", "sin", "thin" , and "gin" all have a i(sounds like e) sound, so they are also assonance. In the last stanza, "soon and "June" both has n sound. 

   

   This poem also has a pattern, after the intro, for me is the first stanza, the rest of the stanzas are all having alliteration for the first line; like "lurk" and "late", "sing" and "sin", "jazz" and "June". Also, in each line, it only has three syllables. I think the writer wants to show a fast paced life, so it only has three syllables in each line. In the second stanza, it used the word the word "lurk" and "strike" to describe them. For me, those words are only used for the animals who are hunting. So I think writer describe them as cheetahs, but they just want to hunt the joy/fun. At last, this poem is in iamb, which is the light stress followed by a heavy stress, like in the third stanza, the line "sing sin", the second word has to be a heavy stress. This poem is also in monometer, contains of one-foot line.