And remembering. Remembering, with twinklings and twinges, As they lean over the beans in their rented back room that is full of beads and receipts and dolls and cloths, tobacco crumbs, vases and fringes. National Poetry Month. Materials for Teachers Teach This Poem. Poems for Kids. Poetry for Teens. Lesson Plans.
Resources for Teachers. Academy of American Poets. American Poets Magazine. Poems Find and share the perfect poems. We Real Cool. We Lurk late. We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon. The Lovers of the Poor arrive. The Ladies from the Ladies' Betterment League Arrive in the afternoon, the late light slanting In diluted gold bars across the boulevard brag Of proud, seamed faces with mercy and murder hinting Here, there, interrupting, all deep and debonair, The pink paint on the innocence of fear; Walk in a gingerly manner up the hall.
Cutting with knives served by their softest care, Served by their love, so barbarously fair. Whose mothers taught: You'd better not be cruel! You had better not throw stones upon the wrens! Herein they kiss and coddle and assault Anew and dearly in the innocence With which they baffle nature.
Who are full, Sleek, tender-clad, fit, fiftyish, a-glow, all Sweetly abortive, hinting at fat fruit, Judge it high time that fiftyish fingers felt Beneath the lovelier planes of enterprise. To resurrect. To moisten with milky chill. To be a random hitching post or plush. To be, for wet eyes, random and handy hem. Their guild is giving money to the poor.
The worthy poor. The very very worthy And beautiful poor. Perhaps just not too swarthy? Perhaps just not too dirty nor too dim Nor—passionate. In truth, what they could wish Is—something less than derelict or dull. Not staunch enough to stab, though, gaze for gaze! The poem is not too long to induce monotony. The tone is one of defiance and stubborn allegiance to the gang. This is a group of outsiders who prefer pool to school, dropping out to serious study. Late alcoholic nights out on the street seem much more preferable to dull nights in.
The line breaks - when a line reaches the end and a new one starts - are a good example of enjambment, when there is no punctuation and the sense is carried over from line to line.
The reader becomes acutely aware of this special line break as the poem progresses. The mix of long and short vowels bring an intense verbal experience for the reader. Just think of the title We Real Cool which is long and drawn out, then contrast this with thin gin and sing sin for example, before the last line again reverts to long vowels, We die soon.
What is the reader to make of these pool players who seem to take pride in the fact they have left school, escaping the tedium of education, perhaps risking unemployment and the chance to earn an honest dollar? And the alliterative lurk late has negative connotations. If a gang of youths are lurking around the implication is that they will sooner or later end up in trouble, become known to the law. They're wasting time, throwing their young lives away. To strike straight is to hit the pool ball hard and true - innocent enough in a game of pool - but what about the strike of a fist, the direct punch, the no nonsense jab, right hook?
This poem brings with it a kind of ambiguity - the lifestyle of these players is questionable to say the least. And when they sing sin does this mean they are going against all the religious truths they were brought up with?
Are they foul mouthing, undermining the christian faith? They may be true to their own oaths and passions, they may be outsiders, not like the mass of the mainstream, but there is the notion too that they are a little pathetic.
Pathos is one thing - based on the possibility that this gang, these cool pool players, are in fact empty jokers and have nothing substantial to say. So they thin gin which means they drink cheap alcohol, they do what the adults do and will probably go on doing whatever it takes to dodge normality.
Their ability to Jazz June seems a sort of climax, for what follows is death, physical or spiritual, a definitive leaving behind. The word jazz suggests flashy, eccentric, stylish, abstract - and also spirit, energy, spunk - this is the macho world the gang have entered, willingly or not.
The last line is still shocking, the collective We almost proudly boasting of a premature demise which follows on logically from what has gone before. So ends a dramatic poem that is, in 8 lines, a miniature tragedy: the seven players die young, too young, and all because of? Thanks for the thoughtful and many-faceted comments on this justly famous poem. I want to add a crucial element I see in the central word "We": it indicates that the sad fate of the young people is decreed by outside forces and applies to them regardless of the individual strengths or circumstances each has.
In short, there is no hope for these people: they are condemned just by their presence in this place, with their race, with the social conditions around them. Marine Biology. Electrical Engineering. Computer Science. Medical Science.
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Literature Poetry Lit Terms Shakescleare. Download this LitChart! Question about this poem? Ask us. Where this theme appears in the poem: Before Line 1 Lines Where parataxis appears in the poem: Lines
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