We Real Cool

Brooks creates an interesting rhythm by including in most of the poem’s lines a caesura, or a pause between complete sentences (here, marked by periods). Because almost all of the poem’s lines end on a hanging “we” that anticipates the next line—Brooks splits most of the poem’s sentences into separate lines through a poetic device called enjambment—it seems as though the speakers are rushing from one bragging statement to the next, eager to outdo whatever declaration about their truancy they’ve just made. 

The rhythm of the poem comes also comes from its short lines made up of one-syllable words. Most lines are three syllables long, and the poem uses an incredibly rare meter: each line is an antibacchius—a metric foot where the first two syllables are stressed while the third isn’t. The characters speak these brief, pithy sentences as if chanting them.

The poem consists of three rhyming couplets and a fourth that implies a rhyme that’s missing. Brooks builds her rhymes by rhyming the next to last stressed syllable in each line and ending each line with the repeating word “we.” The poem’s three rhymes are “cool we” and “school we”, “late we” and “straight we”, “sin we” and “gin we.