The Pool Players. / Seven at the Golden Shovel.”
-- Stage Instructions (Lines 1 – 2)

Importance: These lines open the poem and set the scene, defining both the characters and the setting. They are thus crucial in establishing the poem’s depiction of some of the spaces and actors that played a key role in the development of jazz culture. Because these lines are markedly different from the couplets that follow and are even set apart from them by an extra space, they function like a set of stage instructions, priming readers to interpret the poem as a script or score for a performance.

We real cool. We / Left school.”
-- The Pool Players (Lines 3 – 4)

Importance: These lines mark the beginning of the Pool Players’ speech and lend the poem its title. They are significant for their characterization of the Pool Players as young Black men, indicated by their use of African American Vernacular English in the phrase “We real cool” (3) and by the...