We FEAR. Adolescence
In a brief, but action-packed ten-line journey, Gwendolyn Brooks takes the reader
through a short and dangerous journey experienced by young and reckless African American
dropouts at a bar. Meanwhile, the journey outlined by Audre Lorde is longer. It seems to be a
stream of consciousness type experience that takes fewer shortcuts and directly expresses the
fears and concerns of a 14-year-old girl. In pop culture today, these themes are still extremely
common, and those who are masterful enough to expand upon it are praised greatly and often
appointed as the greatest of their generation. Pulitzer Prize winner (For his album DAMN.)
Kendrick Lamar seems to tie the two poems together and integrate them into his own life as a
young African American in the song FEAR. (track 12 of DAMN.), which he believes contains
the greatest verses he has written (Vice). The poems “We Real Cool” and “Hanging Fire” have
made a mark on modern pop culture via the time enduring theme they share of adolescence as a
time when self-loathing, stress, and fear, which leads to unsafe coping mechanisms.
Gwendolyn Brooks was an African American poet, author, and teacher, and was the first
African American to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize. Likewise, Kendrick Lamar, who heavily
focuses on the African American experience, was the first musical artist to win the Pulitzer Prize
outside of the classical and jazz genres. In “We Real Cool”, Brooks provides a large amount of
information in a small number of words. Firstly, she reveals that she and those accompanying her
“left school” (Brooks), hence they are “real cool”. Due to the lack of information presented,
readers must infer why they have left school. A following line, “We / Thin gin” (Brooks), would
indicate that they are abusing alcohol, and are therefore experiencing difficulties that they feel
the need to cover up. Another possibility could be to provide to their family. Gwendolyn Brooks
focuses her writing on the injustices and evils of the African American experience. Today,
dropout rates of African Americans (31%) are 16% higher than whites’ dropout rates (14%).
Reasons for this disparity tend to be relating to money; a large portion of African American
youths must work full time to provide for their family, which interestingly is a topic explored in
many Kendrick Lamar songs – an item illustrating the timelessness of Brooks’ themes. As for
Audre Lorde’s narrator, a school dropout is looming for highly differing reasons, however, the
theme remains very similar. The girl in “Hanging Fire” says that “There is nothing I want to do /
and too much / that has to get done” (Lorde). One can infer that Brooks’ narrator was once
overwhelmed with the stressors of school, and found that the benefit of leaving school
outweighed the negativity of academics. The 14-year-old girl of “Hanging Fire” has not yet
reached this point, however, fears reaching a much direr point that the narrator of “We Real
