"We real cool" By Gwendolyn Brooks

Brooks herself has stated that when she wrote this poem she drew her inspiration from music and as you read the poem you are immediately thrown into a rhythm and beat.   Brooks drew from the environment she found herself in and the world around her.  Jazz was one of the most influential forms of music heard around the world.  Jazz was a creative art that in turn influenced others like Brooks to be creative in their works by drawing inspiration from simple things like a pool game or the actions of two men at a pool house.  This poem is a musical reality that uses real life people, and kids who thought they were real cool because they were doing everything they wanted.  They followed the beat of the drum and the sound of the sweet music that existed within their soul.  That is what Brooks was writing about.  She saw that people were real cool because they allowed inspiration to be a part of their life.  "We real cool" was indeed a real cool poem that brought creativity to the reader by the form of sound and music.