We real cool. We
Leave school.

“We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks

This begins Pulitzer prize winner Gwendolyn Brooks’ poem, “We real cool.” 

Just from these two lines, I can visualize the characters who said them. The way they stand, the defiant looks on their faces. Even their ethnicity.

Can you imagine if she listened to the “rules” of English and wrote, “We are cool. We skipped school today.”

All the character and interestingness drops out of the words and leaves us with nothing but “correct” grammar.