We Real Cool

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot (1915)

One of the great modernist poets, T.S. Eliot served as an inspiration to the young Gwendolyn Brooks, who explicitly referenced him as an early influence. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” is Eliot’s best-known poem and contains a level of careful, ironic detail that Brooks emulated in her early work. Like “We Real Cool,” this is also a persona poem.

“the sonnet-ballad” by Gwendolyn Brooks (1949)

“We Real Cool” shows off Brooks’s meticulous talent for using sound devices. Her poem “the sonnet-ballad,” which appeared in her Pulitzer Prize-winning book Annie Allen, shows off her use of sound devices in a tighter formal structure. This poem is a traditional sonnet (14 lines of rhyming iambic pentameter) that employs the tone and content of a ballad.

“BLK History Month” by Nikki Giovanni (2000)

Nikki Giovanni, like Gwendolyn Brooks, was inspired by the Black Arts Movement. Her 2000 poem “BLK History Month,” suitable for grade-school readers, compares February’s call to remembrance with a seed that takes root in the ground.

“The Golden Shovel” by Terrance Hayes (2017)

Terrance Hayes, a contemporary poet, wrote “The Golden Shovel” as a tribute to Gwendolyn Brooks.