Hudgins' Jovial Poem Inspired by Two Famous Poems

Hudgens' poem "The Wild Swans Skip School" shows use of much free association and imagination. Some commonality between Yeats' "The Wild Swans at Coole" and Brooks' "We Real Cool" probably prompted Hudgens to write his poem. It is most apparent that the words "Cool" and "Coole" in the titles of Brooks' and Yeats' poems respectively gave Hudgens the idea of mixing the poems together in a single parody. Because the subject matter of Brooks' and Yeats' poems are completely different and because the words "Cool" and "Coole" have completely different meanings, Hudgens had to be thinking very abstractly to relate the two poems in any way. To mix the poems, he uses the form and simple language of Brooks' poem with the content of Yeats' poem. Also, the poem is "spoken" from the swans' point of view, just as Brooks' poem is "spoken" from the pool players' point of view. The swans speak with the same boastful tone as do the pool players, but they are speaking about their actions in Yeats' poem.

Hudgins' parody is little more than the mixing of two relatively famous poems together in a clever manner. It is meant to be comical, and it has little or no underlying message about the other two poets or their poems. At most, Hudgins' message is one of paying respect to the other two poems by recognizing them in one of his poems. He certainly has no ill intention toward the poems. The title of his poem, "The Wild Swans Skip School," sounds too childish and unrealistic to be a legitimiate attack on the other two poems. The swans themselves are the speakers of the poem, giving the poem a light fable tone. Also, though his poem makes a juvenile yet clever joke about the other two, the premise of the joke- mixing two unlike poems of very different subject matter- brings out no problems with them that he may have. The joke itself is a way of paying homage to Brooks and Yeats and their respective poems.

The poem has a deeper meaning that does not involve either of the two poems by which it was inspired. It compares the carefree pool players in Brooks' poem to the swan. The simple structure and carefree mood of Brooks' poem is repeated in Hudgins' parody,

Brooks: We real cool. We
Left school. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We (1-4)

Hudgins: We beat wings. We
fly rings. We
scorn Yeats. We
have mates. We (1-4)

This shows that, like the pool players, the swans are detached from society in that they do not care how they affect it. Also, the structure in both poems shows that, like the pool players, the swans are proud of their rebelliousness. This is because the structure gives a haughty mood to the pool players' and the swans' words. Just as the pool players do not care whether or not their lifestyle fits society and whether or not they are draining society's resources without giving back, the swans do not care if they flaunt their lovers in front of the lonely Yeats. Hudgins possibly is trying to say that the swan are no more empathetic toward others than the pool players (Of course, the swan feel no empathy toward other humans because they are animals. However, because Yeats' and Hudgins' poems personify the swans to a certain degree, Hudgins is trying to say that the swans are no more empathetic than the pool players even in their personified form).