We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
Gwendolyn Brooks poem, “We Real Cool” uses the postmodernist era themes of isolation and the author. The poem is presumably talking about a group of teenagers who believe they are cool because of things they have done. The beginning of the poem uses the theme of isolation with the lines, “ We left school. We lurk late.” (Brooks 2-3). This implies that while the group of kids who left school are doing these things, their entire group is isolated from society. Brooks uses the theme of the author throughout the entire poem by using the word “we” in every single line. The last line of the poem, “ We die soon” (Brooks 7-8), plays with the postmodernist technique of discontinuous time. The line plays with the idea that the group is going to die soon, because of the lifestyle they chose to live.
Even though “We Real Cool” has the theme of isolation, which is similar to the theme of alienation in Robert Frost’s “Desert Places”, it is much different from his work. Brooks uses the pronoun “we” to make it seem like it is a problem with a larger group of people. Frost uses the pronoun “I” throughout his poem, which makes it sound more like a story about himself. “We Real Cool” was focused on the issue of teenagers in society rather than telling a story about isolation.