Response #3

Camron Grant

Mrs. Locano

AP Literature

6 October, 2016                         Poetry Response #3: "Bad Decisions"
                                              CLICK HERE TO READ "WE REAL COOL"
 

      In Gwendolyn Brooks's poem "Bad Decisions" the speaker in four short stanzas let readers know, when you make bad decisions, "We / Die soon." (7-8). I like how she gives examples on what people do when they think they "real cool" and how everything catches up with them when they make bad decisions (hence the title). Brooks puts out a meaning that really means something to me. Every action has a consequence! and the speaker says all the actions they do like in lines 1-3, "We / Left school. We / Lurk late." Leaving school and lurking late is a bad action especially if you are in school . Then will follow their soon to be consequence dying soon. But there is something I don't like in the third stanza, "We / Sing sin." (4-5). What that supposed to mean? I hope the speaker not talking about what I think the speaker talking about. I think... the speaker is talking about rap music, because certain types of rap songs do have a lot of sin imbedded in them. But it could mean something else.



       "We real cool" conveys other meanings other than bad decisions. The speaker uses we (as in two people or more) and is speaking for the other person, already determining his or her death. I feel like one of the people in the word "we" isn't as committed to making bad decisions as the speaker says they are. What if that person was pressured into doing such things just so they can seem "real cool". Only brooks and the speaker truly know the meaning of this poem and I don't think it means what most people might think.