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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gwendolyn Brooks
Gwendolyn Brooks
Gwendolyn Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas, in 1917 and raised in Chicago. She is the author of more than twenty books of poetry, including Children Coming Home (The David Co., 1991);...
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FURTHER READING
Back to School Poems
All the World's a Stage
by William Shakespeare
Apples
by Grace Schulman
Art Class
by James Galvin
Being Jewish in a Small Town
by Lyn Lifshin
Evening Walk as the School Year Starts
by Sydney Lea
First Gestures
by Julia Spicher Kasdorf
From "One A.M."
by David Young
In Michael Robins’s class minus one
by Bob Hicok
Mary's Lamb
by Sarah Josepha Hale
Messieur Degas Teaches Art and Science at Durfy Intermediate School, Detroit 1942
by Philip Levine
Niggerlips
by Martín Espada
Panty Raid
by Terri Ford
Pledge
by Elizabeth Powell
Sentimental Education
by Mary Ruefle
Sick
by Shel Silverstein
The Hand
by Mary Ruefle
The Junior High School Band Concert
by David Wagoner
The Shout
by Simon Armitage
The Testing-Tree
by Stanley Kunitz
Theme for English B
by Langston Hughes
Why Latin Should Still Be Taught in High School
by Christopher Bursk
Black History
A Negro Love Song
by Paul Laurence Dunbar
A Song for Many Movements
by Audre Lorde
American History
by Michael S. Harper
Believing in Iron
by Yusef Komunyakaa
Black Woman
by Georgia Douglas Johnson
Derrick Poem (The Lost World)
by Terrance Hayes
Dreams
by Langston Hughes
Flounder
by Natasha Trethewey
For the Confederate Dead
by Kevin Young
Frederick Douglass
by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Harriet Tubman
by Eloise Greenfield
homage to my hips
by Lucille Clifton
I'm A Fool To Love You
by Cornelius Eady
La Vie C'est La Vie
by Jessie Redmon Fauset
Lift Every Voice and Sing
by James Weldon Johnson
Quatrains
by Gwendolyn Bennett
Reunion 2005
by Rita Dove
Song of the Son
by Jean Toomer
Still I Rise
by Maya Angelou
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
by Langston Hughes
The White House
by Claude McKay
We Wear the Mask
by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Related Prose
Groundbreaking Book: The Bean Eaters by Gwendolyn Brooks (1960)
Gift Shop
Cynthia Rowley T-shirt
Related Pages
Audio Archive
Listening Booth
Poetry Ringtones
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We Real Cool Order Now Buy the CD  
by Gwendolyn Brooks
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                   THE POOL PLAYERS. 
                   SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.



We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.




From The Bean Eaters by Gwendolyn Brooks, published by Harpers. © 1960 by Gwendolyn Brooks. Used with permission. All rights reserved.


Audio Clip
May 03, 1983
Guggenhiem Museum
From the Academy Audio Archive
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