Hello and welcome to the Daily Poem. I'm Heidi White. I'm filling in for David Kern today.

And if you've been following along with the Daily Poem, then you know that we've been featuring

black voices and poetry. So today I'm going to read to you a poem by County Cullen,

To the Swimmer. Now as I watch you, strong of arm and endurance, battling and struggling with the

waves that rush against you, ever with invincible strength returning into my heart, grown each day

more tranquil and peaceful. Comes a fierce longing of mind and soul that will not be appeased until, like you,

I breast young deep and boundless expanse of blue.

With an outward stroke of power and tense, your mighty arm goes forth, cleaving its way

through waters that rise and roll,

ever a ceaseless vigil keeping over the treasures beneath.

My heart goes out to you of dauntless courage and spirit indomitable.

And though my lips would speak, my spirit forbids me to ask,

is your heart as true as your arm?

County Collin was a major representative voice of the Harlem Renaissance.

During the 1920s, Harlem was a very important place for the development of African-American letters in the

American literary scene. At the end of World War I, there was a national, an international,

really experience of disillusionment, a loss of faith, a drifting away from the moorings of the traditional past, not only for

African Americans, but for, I mean, really everybody, both nationally and internationally.

And in response to that, African Americans begin to ask really important questions.

What does it mean to be African American in America? What does it mean to be African American in America?

What does it mean to have been part of this war and having our own cultural identity,

but also in the midst of all of this cultural change?

...