We real cool

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.

I love this poem, the undeniable energy, the mood it invokes, the voice. "The Pool Players" also speaks directly to the importance of vernacular dialect in written language. Yesterday, we talked about the need to let our students in on the "game" of Standard English. Going one step further in her essay, Christenson argues that we should make the power structures that influence society explicit, thereby empowering our students with socially mobility, but also with the context necessary to critique the system. Knowing the rules is one thing, understanding how to change the rules is another. I certainly hope to spark this meta-awareness in my students in regards to dialect and manners of speaking, but also in terms of their education as a whole. I see great promise in letting my students in on the "game" of the rubric and assessment. As Dornan et al. suggest, "Before they begin each new assignment, the class might talk about the categories that should be included in evaluating it and how to distribute the assignment's points with the appropriate emphases" (195).

Listen to Gwendolyn Brooks recite "The Pool Players" at poets.org. I love her reference to the scandalous element of "Jazz" and her jab at the anthologies that represent each author as the sum of only one or two selections, but most of all I love how she reads. Her poem becomes a song, a sharp staccato note punctuating the end of each line, the first words stretched into a melody. . . Even with the form of poetry encouraging the reader to linger here, or speed up there, reading silently does little when compared to hearing Brooks' recitation. As Adger et al. explain, "the fact that writing is received visually means that the kind of information that can be conveyed orally through vocal shifts in stress and intonation has to be provided in another way" (114). Form can go a long way, but there is still an undeniable power in the authenticity of voice.