Cool, Or: He Even Stopped for Green

¶ … Cool, or: He Even Stopped for Green Lights Experience is the best teacher and when a writer finds a way to express his experiences in a successful way, readers always benefit. An example of how life shapes people and art is seen in Don Lee's poem, "But He Was Cool, or: He Even Stopped for Green Lights." Real life experiences and insights brings this poem to life. Lee's background includes abandonment by his father and an alcoholic mother.

His mother died when he was 16, forcing him "into the realities of the working world at an early age." (Hurst). His background is diverse but his difficulties did not prevent him from earning a Masters in Fine Arts in 1984. While he worked, he used "poetry as a means of making sense of and bringing order to the fragmented world around him" (Hurst). Theodore Hudson writes lee's poetry "successfully conveys spontaneity and emotional compulsion as well as thoughtful ideological commitment" (Hudson).

Real life experiences with a variety of people serves as the inspiration in Lee's poetry while irony softens the impact of his words. Life inspires many people in many different ways. Lee attempts to integrate his experiences as a in this poem because it gives the poem authenticity. Language becomes a primary way to do this, with the poet speaking with slang popular in the neighborhoods in which he spends time.

The poet tells us the subject of his poem was "triple-hip" (Lee 9), greeting others in "swahili" (13) and saying goodbye in "yoruba" (14). The poet also uses ampersands, skips spaces in between words and runs words together to emulate a certain speaking style. The lines are short to illustrate a quick, energetic tone we might find in a hip-hop song. These details give the poem a sense of validity and give the poet credibility. While his words and his message are powerful, Lee uses satire and irony to drive his point home.

Cool is a word with a broad definition; many cultures and subcultures may consider very different and opposite things "cool." This contradiction does not make "cool" any less cool because those who art cool can cross boundaries with their coolness factor. Others, who only wish to be cool, only emerge looking foolish in front of everyone. Such is the case with Lee's hipster. The tile of the poem demonstrates just how cool this person is, indicating that he was so cool he stops for green lights.

The poet writes he is so he "un-cooled by other niggers' cool" (16) and he was nicknames the refrigerator. In addition, the poet states "to be black / is / to be / very-hot" (27-30). The irony in the poem helps soften the impact of the poet's harsh words and attitude toward the misguided hipster. "But He Was Cool, or: He Even Stopped for Green Lights" gives readers a glimpse into the ironic world of coolness.

Lee makes writing about such things seem easy but he taps into an aspect of life we all recognize but have trouble expressing. In the end, coolness is not something that can be taught; it is something the cool people.