Both poetry and prose employ language as their means of transmitting their messages and their themes. In prose, the language tends to lie in the background serving to transparently provide a window into the world it portrays and the meaning the passage contains. Poetry, however, as can be seen in “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks, uses the language itself as the means to express the content and significance of the work. Written in 1960, Brooks …showed first 75 words of 711 total…

…showed last 75 words of 711 total…Gwendolyn Brooks is able to speak more profoundly and deeply about this group of truant pool players than any prose could have. The structure and rhythm of the poem both are crucial in understanding the humor and tragedy of the young men’s lives. Through the usage of many figurative language tools, Brooks is able to capture all of her thoughts about the situation into eight lines of what would have been pages of prose.