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.

In “We Real Cool,” Gwendolyn Brooks briefly describes the battle of seven school dropouts and their struggles with personal identity. The poem tells the story of school-aged pool players whose lives may appear glamorous, but is brought to truth in the last line. They are unsure of themselves and basically ruining their lives with their impulsive decisions. “We real cool. We/Left school. We/Lurk late. We/strike straight.” In the poem, the pool players are in conflict with themselves. The are not very confident and believe because they do things such as leaving school, standing around late a night and talking big about themselves, that they are “cool.” The poem's rhythm blends well with its straightforward context. The short lines may symbolize the dropouts lack of vocabulary or they way they regularly speak. Alone each line is short and incomplete but in the poem all of the lines come together to paint an image.  All the excitement of this lifestyle is brought to a realization with the last line “We/die soon.”

Sadie and Maud
by Gwendolyn Brooks

In “Sadie and Maud”, Gwendolyn Brooks tells a brief story of two completely different women, each symbolizing a different type of person, and their individual lives. By comparing these two, Brooks shows different lives make different people happy. In the story, Sadie is the stay-at-home type and gives birth to two daughters out of wedlock. Maud attends college and lives in her house all alone. “Maud went to college./Sadie stayed home./Sadie scraped life/With a fine toothed comb,” reads the first four lines. Maud represents the studious, responsible girl who works hard and does not have much time for excitement in her life. In the end, she is living alone in an old house is given the metaphor of a “thin brown mouse.” Sadie, on the other hand, who “scraped life with a fine toothed comb,” says her final goodbyes with two daughters to carry on her spirit and see life just the way she did. She was one who liked to organize things and set them out just like they should be, maybe seeing more of what she wanted to see than reality, while Maud was more realistic. Both women were successful and, although their lives may have not been exactly how they had desired, they were both who they wanted to be.

Maud went to college.
Sadie stayed home.
Sadie scraped life
With a fine toothed comb.

She didn't leave a tangle in
Her comb found every strand.
Sadie was one of the livingest chits
In all the land.

Sadie bore two babies
Under her maiden name.
Maud and Ma and Papa
Nearly died of shame.

When Sadie said her last so-long
Her girls struck out from home.
(Sadie left as heritage
Her fine-toothed comb.)

Maud, who went to college,
Is a thin brown mouse.
She is living all alone
In this old house.