We Real Cool: James D. Sullivan - On the Walls and in the Streets: American Poetry Broadsides from the 1960’s

Sullivan focuses on the structure and rhythm of the poem, and how they work together to illustrate the attitude and fate of the poem’s protagonists.

The simple, but strong and regular rhythm, reinforced by the jarringly nonstandard grammar, creates a sense of energy and aggressive physical power. But in the end, rhythm and syntax contain and finally cut off that vitality. The word "We" begins each short subject-predicate sentence and ends each line but the last. To maintain the syntactic pattern, the last line ends on the predicate, "Die soon," omitting the final "We." The predominant rhythm of the poem--two strong beats, one weak beat--resolves (satisfyingly) on the two strong beats in the last line. These two patterns, syntactic and rhythmic, converge to eliminate the final "We." The group dissolves in the last line, "Die soon," the final consequence of coolness, of energetically rejecting the middle-class respect for education. This satisfying little tragedy confirms the dominance and the rightness of values foreign to the players themselves. By the end, they are completely powerless, dead.

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