Monday, July 14, 2008

This Is Why People Have Blogs

. . . so that they can rant about things that were bothering them last month (June) and will not be even remotely revelant until next June. So here it is:

If you are even remotely considering advertising a June jazz event with the words "We jazz June," please consider the poem from which it comes, "We Real Cool." The African-American poet Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) published this poem as part of a collection in 1963:

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.
____________________________________________________________________

Take-home point: Promoting your family jazz celebration in the park in June with a poem about the urban racialized poor and their imminent demise=bad.

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