now when you read we real cool by gwendolyn brooks not everybody can hear the lyricism the emotion and really what the poem captures but if you've ever been to like a poetry slam or one of those like live readings this is just one of those ones that has this attitude that captures a movement it captures a time it captures this feeling and i'm gonna leave a link to a video down below that i think really helps to express that for people who you know if they read it flat okay that's one thing but when you
see how this poem can come to life you'll see how it steps to a whole nother level yeah i remember reading it the first time and then you sent me that link and i watched and i was like oh now i feel it i get it i understand and i think that sometimes that's how poetry is meant to be that's really gonna you know jazz it up for you pun intended coming up on the codex cantina we real cool by gwendolyn brooks 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 and again i'm gonna leave a link down below for a presentation on it that is just next level mine was horrendous so let's jump into an example of what is considered jazz poetry where it demonstrates this lyricism and this you know this rhythm that really encapsulates a musical movement we've talked about many times on this channel famous authors like langston hughes and others that have really tried to create this afro-america sense of literature and history through the 20th
century and i love how gwenron brooks has taken that and simplified it down to a very short poem and given it this jazzy spice that really brings home what it meant to to be you know somebody living through the 1960s she's quoted as saying the inspiration behind this issue was on the south side of chicago and she saw all these young boys playing hooky skipping school and instead of wondering what they did or or anything like those lines that a parent or an adult may think she just thought what were they thinking and that's what
gave birth to this poem this we real cool this pool players seven at the golden shovel and i guess one of my questions i'd have is seven what does seven mean in the title of this is that the the number of boys that she sees that's kind of what i took it as i guess online there are people that talk about like could this potentially be referring to these seven deadly sins and they'll break down this piece where they show how each of the seven different sins kind of shows up in the piece as well
and i thought that was an interesting take on it oh okay i didn't think about that yeah seven deadly sins so cool now here's my question for why i asked that we lurk late who's the we in this story who's telling who's narrating this poem i thought that this was she was talking more about like maybe african-american people or her people uh young people maybe okay so kind of like a movement i wonder i almost viewed it as the seven boys that were skipping school and that this wee we became kind of like their banner
their their song for how they are that their parent have you heard the term parataxis no it's the you know that i came i saw i conquered where you like had these quick lines that aren't separated by like and or or it's just like quick repeating oh like their mantra okay yeah yeah that's kind of what this was to me it was these seven boys and this was their i came i saw i conquered this is their way of life and when gwendolyn brooks pictures these these children she's she's putting them in a situation where
they're skipping school right and i guess what does and i know as a schoolteacher this is going to hurt your heart but to some students that have a pessimistic view of school what is school is it something to rebel against is it unity is it conformity is it something where it doesn't allow them to express their individuality oh for sure i think that a lot of times we do constrain them they're restricted by bells they have to go to ask for the bathroom they're putting these little cubicles they're sitting in rows uh and it very
much feels prisonistic in in terms of their life where they're trying to figure themselves out and you know they're restricting their their their freedoms and their wants and joys and saying you have to do this you have to do this you have to this instead of what would you like to do and here is seven boys who are saying what is what does it mean to be us what is the african-american art form what do we do and in the summer when they're free to do whatever they want you know the jazz june line if
you will at least how that's i took it is you know in june what do you do when you're a little boy you're free to do whatever time you play outside yeah you can you can go to those pool halls you can go to your friends places and these are boys that are like we're gonna do that all the time you know what i mean we're gonna we're gonna take our life we're gonna avoid school right we're playing hooky and they're going to do the things that like sing sin and quote unquote they know that
what they're doing is considered morally wrong to i think society but they're like this is us this is how we find our voice and that seems very empowering to me yeah i love the kind of like contradiction here of you know school is confined and summertime is freedom and jazz is that freedom in music to kind of break the rules right and that's what the boys are doing are breaking the rules well what's interesting too is i guess gwendolyn brooks herself has said her intention with how she kind of ends the wii at the end
and then it's jazz june seeing sin thin gin her intention was the wii was to be soft and that the other parts were going to be harsher right like the the parts that rhyme have assonance consonants all this you know musical and jazz like elements to it those were meant to be the forefront the louder parts that are spoken probably better performed by anyone else besides than my reading but it's it's the idea of this is the definitional part the what we do what we are what we think not the we but the seeing sin
the thin gin like what we do matters in life and i think it's interesting how these boys breaking against the mold find their voice through those actions even if they know that that's not what we're supposed to be doing at least what the parents tell us we're supposed to be doing yeah i think it's kind of cool that that's where she wanted to focus i know as i was reading it was hard for me because i'm looking at the non-sentence structure of this because again as anybody knows on that's watched the channel i struggle with
poetry even though i love this one and i think it's very accessible is the wii is what hit home for me because i think that's something that empowers these boys and empowers the african-american community is the weeness of it of we come together we can make something different we can be better we can make change and that's really what hit home for me and i was like if i was thinking about this as a song and i watched the link you sent it was that we bam we bam we bam and i really i really
honed in on that and maybe that wasn't her intention but i felt the power behind that just as much as the the uh you know the sin and gin in the poem now something that might have struck you with the bam is the we die soon at the end kind of shocking all these things about life how we define ourselves what we choose to do with our time does that mean the the singing the sin the thin gin you know the drinking does that mean they accept that they're going to die sooner than others and
how did you take that line i guess historically i really thought about okay if gwendolyn brooks is experiencing the 1950s and the 1960s in america even in some place as progressive amazing chicago i still think that there is a lot of issues with african americans and others in our our culture and i think that she's seeing a lot of young black men die and uh i think that that is encompassing of all of of not just maybe these seven boys but you know we die as a people unless we make a change or doing something
better as a people's do you think that influenced her to think that they had to extract more out of the time that they did have in the same way that these boys are like we ain't got time for school we're going to die too soon sooner than others that we need to live life to its fullest while we can yes and no uh definitely because the boys seem to be enjoying and living life to the fullest but they seem to be doing childlike things right if you're living life to the fullest um are you going
to play like a child always are you going to strive to move forward in life and have more and grow up and be better and maybe help the next generation because if you continue in these childlike things then change might not take place because you're going to be treated as a child interesting interesting now the we jazz june i think is an interesting one because i guess it's controversial because some people took it in ways the author didn't intend and the author even makes jokes about how well that's the way you want to take it
that's fine and i think that's so true to the spirit of this channel but to me the way i took that is the well we jazz like this is how we entertain ourselves this is the music the expression of ourselves june right the time of freedom the time where i get to choose how to spend my time but they do that all the time and i think that was kind of the climax for me is the idea of being able to fully realize your own humanity your own time on this earth and to express that
in a way that maybe maybe isn't morally correct with that seeing sin but it still doesn't necessarily harm anyone being at the pool table right maybe it's not pushing society together but maybe we're not all destined to push society together i don't know i don't know i agree with you that i i want people to be good outstanding citizens but it's also conflicted with the idea of letting out and letting your hair loose and being yourself as opposed to always being in the conformity of what school demands sometimes well to talk a little bit quickly
i i thought about when i was a a teenager and it's june and i was going out and and playing and uh you know jumping on my bike and riding around you know until it was dark outside i had that sense of freedom and uh you know it'd get a little cool out in the summer and uh you know i i reminisced with that it kind of took me back to my childhood uh but really the whole thing culminated at the end where it took almost that bleak turn of the we we die soon and
i think that um i think she was talking about not just those seven boys but i think she was talking about a broader base of you know not just the african-american community i think all of us that we we have to come together and that yes there can be play and fun but if we're gonna make a difference uh we need to come together as a people very good piece i definitely appreciate it and again check out that link that does it justice as opposed to my reading of it we post videos every monday and
thursday we'll leave a playlist for other poetry talks that we've had on this channel look forward to seeing you and hope you do decide to subscribe una out be cool peace
