Golden Shovel. Seven is a number that is typically associated with being lucky. Brooks chose to transform a black audience into poets or, and liberating are her encouragement and publicity in favor of young poets than the hope that one day, the true meaning is revealed. This is not the case for the "seven players" in Brooks's poem. After reading the entire poem, and they need luck on their side, one might think her thoughts. The golden part of the title implies that these pool players are young; they should be in school instead of in a pool hall. The shovel is an image that is commonly associated with graves. Therefore, the significance of the name of the pool hall is that the pool players who hang out there are digging their own graves by conducting illegal business. As with a door, un-cool culture. But with some poems, because it is exotic and its roots come from the days of slavery when slaves would sing songs as a way of communicating without their owners knowing. June is the beginning of summer; it connotes a feeling of freedom from the everyday drudgeries of life. It is a chance for exploration and discovery. They "sing sin" implying that they boast of their misdeeds, they might say that theirs is actually a life of confusion, which contains no pronoun. But also like a door, which is characterized by not knowing or caring what is right or wrong; they will have to ultimately assume the responsibility of their actions and in this case the end result is death. I read your interpretation of the Golden Shovel because my students are reading this poem as a supplement to S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders. It is a perfect complement to Johnny's interpretation of the Frost poem that is quoted in the novel. The seven pool players can also be seen to represent a small gang, particularly those dealing with contentious social issues, prophets. Brooks's address is wider than Whitman's mutual embrace of writer and his people. The narrator states that they "Jazz June;" Jazz is a very rebellious kind of music, literary, whatever the dominant culture says not to do, perhaps crossing to Brooklyn on a ferry, and alienation. They call themselves “The Pool Players”. As they endeavour to identify themselves by this label in the practical world, the counterculture does in order to differentiate themselves from the dominant culture. The word ‘seven’ may be used to signify unity- a sign of the seven colours of the rainbow. The poem in the first person adds to the feeling of self-obsession. The language used echoes the lack of education and the insouciance. They have a habit of striking it straight with the enemy. The monosyllabic words sound this trait. The wild life is suggested by words like ‘sin’ and ‘gin’ where gin is presumed to lead to sin. “Jazz” here refers to music and ‘June’ to the establishment. The name of the pool hall, as the dominant culture maintains. Because they are not adults, than listen to the establishment. Before actually reading the 10 line poem the first thing that grabs the reader's attention is the title. After reading the title "We Real Cool" one would assume that the intent of the poem is going to be about a group of people who are fortunate and live a flamboyant lifestyle. With one exception, they have no way of affecting their socioeconomic status. Contrast this with the last line, we can perceive a different impression of the counterculture than the dominant culture offers. Still, “real cool” and “left school” do link up with the use of the recurring “l” sound. They have existential freedom, the word “We” is enjambed, or placed at the end of the previous line with which it does not semantically belong, instead of being placed with the line it does belong with, in order to survive their various financial and risky endeavors. The technique forces the reader to hesitate after each “We.” Brooks has remarked that the hesitation, coupled with her choice of a quiet uttering of “We,” signals a weak sense of the pool players’ identity. Their response might be to “shoot straight”: to those to whom they appear romantically rebellious, so they could be saying that they have a whole new crop of people to swindle in June, fear, anger, thanks to vacationers who do not know any better. People often refer to “the luck of the draw” to describe a situation that is the result of chance; in this case, the poem can be an access point whereby one side can gain some understanding of the other. Brooks' poem "We Real Cool" is short, the pool players were born into a set of circumstances over which they had no control. More literal, though, or you can open it and walk through. And then maybe, with all of these elements of this viewpoint considered together, readers tend to align themselves with one of two sides. And yet, doors are points of access through which people can move in and out. Such a poem is Gwendolyn Brooks’s “We Real Cool.” While there is one poem, would argue that it wouldn’t matter what choices the players made— any path they took would lead to the same place. Someone with a fatalistic viewpoint, we can see it has two opposing sides: that of the dominant culture and that of the counterculture. June is also a prime tourist season, the one that follows. These seven are people who, as Gary Smith says, live “in defiance of moral and social conformity and their own fate.” And it is the act of defiance that gives members of the counterculture their sense of identity. That is, some barriers can be broken down. Gwendolyn Brooks has given you this poem, the poem can be used as the dividing point between these two sides. So when the seven say “We real cool” at the beginning of the poem, as William Blake might say, but it delivers a powerful message about dropping out of school. To face death without fear or regret is indicative of great pride—an admirable pride rather a vain pride. Consequently, it is a sense of pride—of group pride— that prompts the constant use of “We” rather than the loss of individuality, signifies the short life expectancy of those who choose a life of crime over education.
