Welcome back to the Daily Poem here on the Close Reeds Podcast Network.

Today is Tuesday, June 16th, 2020.

I'm David Kern.

Today's poem is by Paul Lawrence Dunbar.

I read a poem from him just a couple weeks ago.

He lived from 1872 to 1906 and was an American poet, novelist, playwright, born in Ohio,

but his parents were former slaves who had been enslaved in Kentucky

prior to the Civil War.

The Monroe was, without a doubt, one of the great black poets in American history.

And as I mentioned when I read his famous poem, Sympathy, he was associated with what

is called the Negro dialect, but he also wrote what most people

would call it conventional English poems.

And despite his death at the age of 33, he is a key figure in American letters.

And the poem that I'm going to read today is called We Wear the Mask.

It's a pretty heartbreaking poem that goes like this.

We wear the mask that grins and lies.

It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes. This debt we paid a human guile.

With torn and bleeding hearts, we smile and mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be overwise in counting all our tears and sighs?

Nay, let them only see us while we wear the mask.

We smile, but, O, great Christ, our cries to thee from tortured souls arise.

We sing, but oh, the clay is vile beneath our feet,

...