Welcome back to The Daily Poem here on the Close Reeds Podcast Network. I'm David Kern and today's Thursday, June 4th, 2020.

Today's poem is by Langston Hughes, James Mercer Langston Hughes, was his full name. He lived from 1901 to 1967.

He was a poet, activist, novelist, playwright, columnist, did all kinds of things, originally from Joplin, Missouri,

but most known for his time in New York City, where he was part of the Harlem Renaissance,

one of the key figures of the Harlem Renaissance.

The poem that I'm going to read today is called Let America Be America Again.

It's one of his more famous poems, one of his more political poems, I suppose, although

almost all of his poetry was political in some way, countercultural in some way.

And this week with the protests going on and the tragic events that led to them, I wanted to share

some poetry by some of the greatest African-American poets that our country has seen.

So yesterday I shared a classic, a famous poem by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and today it's

going to be this Langston Hughes poem. It's a little bit long, so I'm going to only read it

one time. I think that probably if I were to add anything to it, it might diminish the effect

of the poem anyway. So I'm going to read it the once, and that'll be it. If you want to go back

and listen to it again, please do. But this is Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes.

Let America be America again.

Let it be the dream it used to be.

Let it be the pioneer on the plane, seeking a home where he himself is free.

America never was America to me.

Let America be the dream, the dreamers dreamed.

Let it be that great, strong land of love where never kings connive, nor tyrants scheme

that any man be crushed by one above.

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