We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.

These lines are from Gwendolyn Brooks’s poem “We Real Cool,” spoken in the collective voice of a small group of young men who hang out at the “Golden Shovel” pool hall. Brooks, a Chicago poet attentive to Black urban life, wrote the poem in the late 1950s amid public anxieties about juvenile delinquency and the narrowing prospects for many Black youths in segregated, economically constrained neighborhoods. The poem’s compressed, chant-like diction and the repeated “We” mimic bravado and group identity while hinting at vulnerability. Brooks later noted she wanted the “We” to be voiced softly—an undercutting of the speakers’ swagger.

The poem captures the seductive performance of “cool”: defiance, risk-taking, and rejection of school and conventional respectability. Each clipped sentence catalogs actions that sound stylish or tough (“Lurk late,” “Strike straight”) but also suggest danger, self-harm, and moral drift (“Sing sin,” “Thin gin”). The repeated “We” creates a chorus of solidarity, yet its brevity also implies how little individual life is allowed to develop beyond the group pose. The final line, “Die soon,” collapses the bravado into a stark forecast—whether literal early death, social death, or the premature closing of possibilities—turning the poem into both portrait and warning.

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.