Point of View

As the title indicates, “We Real Cool” is spoken from a first-person plural point of view. In a poem of just 32 words, eight of those words are the subject pronoun “We.” This emphasis on “We” is open to multiple interpretations. To begin, it is somewhat ironic, as the poem deals with a cultural expression considered nonconformist at the time, and yet the seven speakers all conform to the exact same representation of this culture, collapsing their seven individual identities into one. At the same time, the “We” could reflect the fact that making jazz is a collective act, whether in the context of a big-band orchestra or of the small combos typical of bebop and its offshoots. By the same token, the creation of jazz culture is a collective act, dependent on people like “the Pool Players” (1) adopting a shared identity and way of behaving...