The Seamy Side of Jazz

One of the primary themes of “We Real Cool” is the cultural space occupied by jazz. When Brooks wrote the poem in the 1950s, jazz was continuing to gain popularity among a wide variety of American audiences. In the process, it was increasingly gaining access to “prestigious” spaces and being molded by white performers in the “cool jazz” style that developed in parallel to that of hard bop. By focusing on the bop current in her poem, Brooks reminds readers that, no matter what stages or publics jazz may have reached, it originated in places like the Golden Shovel for audiences like the Pool Players. At the same time, she acknowledges some of the more dangerous characteristics of the culture associated with bop music, which was known for the hard living that brought some of its brightest practitioners to early graves. In...