All That Jazz

We Real Cool
-Gwendolyn Brooks-

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 don't generally like poetry (with notable exceptions), but this one has always stuck with me. It was in an anthology textbook I had in high school AP English. This poem wasn't assigned, but I stumbled across it since it was on the page after the one that was assigned (which I don't remember at all).