“Most readers make three false assumptions when addressing an unfamiliar poem.”
While reading “White Lies” by Natasha Tretheway, I made the first assumption- “they should understand what they encounter on the first reading, and if they don’t, that something is wrong with them or with the poem.” This is the assumption I always make while reading poems. “White Lies” was a poem that I reread to make sure I understood it. It is about someone who is of mixed-race and lives in a neighborhood of more colored people, but can pass as a “white girl”. The narrator states that they can say they live “uptown”, which they seem to think is a better area than where they really live. At first, I thought the reading was about a kid lying to fit in, but then I realized it is someone struggling with identity and lying to figure out which race is “more them”.
While reading “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks, I made the second assumption-“the poem is a kind of code, that each detail corresponds to one, and only one, thing, and unless they can crack this code, they’ve missed the point.” I didn’t understand what the “code” was so I moved onto the next poem. I came back to it and realized it wasn’t so difficult to understand. I believe the poem is about a group of kids who drop out and think they are cool because they do their own thing and defy authority. I think the narrator sees their group as “thugs” because of their comment in the last line “We die soon”. It is a known topic that if you are apart of the “thug-life” you risk losing your life to “the streets”.
4 thoughts on “Raiza Mallol Discussion 13”
Raiza, this a very interesting discussion of your encounter with both “White Lies” and “We Real Cool.” You aptly point out the dramatic irony in “We Real Cool” when you comment on the final line, which suggests that the boys are not really “cool.” Instead, they are doomed. I’m also glad that a rereading of “White Lies” led to a better understanding of the duplicity the speaker is writing about.
Hello Raiza, I had the same exact experience when reading “White Lies”, later realizing that the narrator lies about her ethnicity. Lying about her financial situation when she talks about her dress coming from a window display from an expensive store was just a part of a larger idea. When it comes to the poem “We Real Cool” I feel like I failed to understand what it was about. I understood the fact that the poem went through a timeline of someone growing up but is it in a negative tone or positive tone? The “We die soon” line makes me think it’s negative. Thanks for sharing.
I really like your take on the reading on “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks I made that exact assumption when I went to read White Lies” by Natasha Tretheway. I thought to myself there has to be a deeper meaning behind the story other just being caught by your mother. However instead of moving onto the next poem I was just stuck it sat with me. I read over line after line trying to decipher what it meant not actually giving thought that the meaning behind the story most likely wasn’t as deep as I was thinking.
I also didn’t understand “White Lies” on my first attempt of reading it. I had to read it a couple of times. I think the speaker in the story was struggling with being accepted because she came from a poor family, and she just wanted to be seen differently. With stories like this, racial dynamics play a huge part and can be seen as a struggle for many young adults, who just want to fit in.