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I think that Wheatley was a unique poet. She was able to begin her journey in poetry after a minimal about of education in the English language. I believe that her work is very readable and relatable, and that her work offers an insight into her life and her struggles. My favorite poem by her is Being Brought from Africa to America. Wheatley's poems have played a big role in African American literature, and I believe that her work should continue to be studied and taught.

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I really enjoy Wheatley's poems. My favorite would have to be On Being Brought From Africa to America. Her diction choice is so concise in this poem. She didn't come to America of her own free will, but rather she was forced, and I really like how that is reflected so well in just the title of the poem. I also enjoy this poem because she refers to her homeland as "Pagan." There's a lot to unpack there. Did she really think this or was she choosing such words masterfully and carefully, or both? I definitely think there are undertones of Stockholm's Syndrome in her writing. But I also think she deliberately worded her work in ways that would speak to her oppressors. In my opinion, Wheatley definitely should be part of the AA Lit canon. She was the first AA to have her work published, and she was never afraid to address those in power. I think her experience is different from Equiano because from what we've learned, Wheatley wasn't repeatedly separated from a sibling, or moved and sold multiple times. Also, she received an education and seems to be treated better overall by her masters, up until they passed and the rest of the family abandoned her.

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I think it’s very clear that Wheatley was the product of a white family. In her poem, “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” she refers to Africa as a “pagan land” and Africans “may be refined.” Her language is blatantly racist, but I believe it’s a case of Stockholm Syndrome that produced those thoughts. In her later years, Wheatley became an activist against slavery. I think she is an important African American poet to continue teaching about, as she provides a new perspective & language about her experiences.

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I really like Wheatley, her way of advocating for African Americans reflects the brain washing effects (some form of Stockholm Syndrome) of white colonialists on a young child, yet she still continues to advocate and create opportunities for others in the future. I really wish we could read her second edition, it feels like we are missing out on something incredibly insightful and valuable. She was and is very important to AA literature and literature as a whole.

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I think Wheatley is a great poet. I do believe she suffered from some kind of Stockholm syndrome given how young and impressionable she was at the time of her enslavement. White men were interested in her because of how "abnormal" her ability to write well was. I would like to know more about what she thinks and feels as opposed to what is being catered towards a white audience.

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I thoroughly enjoy reading anything by Phillis Wheatley. Due to her background, I feel like her take is just as equally important, even if she was subjectively suffering from Stockholm syndrome or inevitably just a creation of her environment. Her access to education was not her fault but she used it to her advantage as time progressed. Her take and her perspective helped get her insight on what was going on at the time across to the masses.

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I think as one of the very first African American women to acquire an education and be recognized for such she is very important to not only the canon of AA lit but the canon itself. I believe she is very readable and the effects of what she depicts can still be seen today--the experience of slavery had an unalterable effect on her psyche as it has had an unalterable effect on society as a whole. Equiano was an abolitionist, and while Wheatley did explore some of these same things, she was content--for lack of a better word--to remain in the position in which she was forced.

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Wheatley is an important writer. While her work can come across as too sympathetic to the institution of slavery and those who take part in it, her work can be read as a subtle protest, quietly calling out the society around her without making herself a target. She's also important in American history as one of the first African American writers, and a woman, who had her work published for any English speaker to read, an achievement that must be acknowledged. By being the first to make this happen, she opened the doors for other writers who would otherwise have been ignored.

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I enjoyed reading her poem On Being Brought from Africa to America, the poem in which we talked about in class Monday. I liked how she used Figurative Language throughout to describe her feelings. Wheatley as a person I think was a very strong and brave writer, especially during the time in which she learned the English language. I really wish she had been able to publish her second edition before passing away; I think it would have been a very interesting read.

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Phillis Wheatley was an amazing poet. She learned to read and write where most people of color could not.  I do believe that in some way she did battle Stockholm syndrome, but I think in some way that it contributed to the works that she published. 

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Phillis Wheatley was an amazing poet. She learned to read and write where most people of color could not.  I do believe that in some way she did battle Stockholm syndrome, but I think in some way that it contributed to the works that she published. 

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I believe that while Wheatley's intentions were pure, she simply did not have the political capital to be heard/taken seriously when it came to abolition. In my opinion, she was a spectacle; White colonists were more interested in her ability to read/write than what she had to say. Something I thought was interesting was in her poems about freedom and championing for liberation for Black slaves, those are the poems met with the most interpretations or think pieces when I fell like it was clear what she had to say. In her poems to people in power (where she mostly praised them) those were the ones that were most highlighted and broadcasted during colonial times.

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What critics have to say about Wheatley...

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What critics have to say about Wheatley...

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/18Cv_famgalyOJxaG2Ztq2WStstvRTXge3Wqrbfs-QvQ/edit?usp=sharing

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I think that her work is important to read because it gives us some insight into the thoughts/emotions of people experiencing slavery, particularly as a domestic slave. Although I do not like the way that she sort of purifies her status as an enslaved woman, her story is valuable because it can demonstrate the power of whitewashed religion and Christianity on the minds of enslaved people. Since she was very young, it only makes sense that she would adopt the culture of her enslavers who presented slavery as a saving grace from 'paganism' instead of the horrible institution that it really was.

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New article on Phillis Wheatley-discovery of a new poem

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New article on Phillis Wheatley-discovery of a new poem

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https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?artguid=c31f41c7-1618-4b36-84f5-23e32b9d4e92
Dr. Frazier

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Among the shelves of the Historic Society of Pennsylvania's research library, a poetry scholar appears to have discovered a quintessential piece of Boston history.

Written in one of its many books is the poem "On the Death of Love Rotch,'' dated 1767. It is believed to be the earliest known full-length elegy by Phillis Wheatley, the Boston-based author who's widely considered the first African American to publish a poetry book.

"There's so much about Wheatley's story that is compelling and that you just can't look away from,'' said Wendy Roberts, an associate professor of English at the University of Albany, and the scholar who stumbled upon the poem in a Quaker commonplace book.

Last year's discovery, which still must be confirmed as written by Wheatley, comes around the 250th publishing anniversary of her sole book, "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral,'' and as scholars interpret her as not just a poet but also a champion of justice, world traveler, and beloved friend.

"Phillis Wheatley is a monumental figure not just in terms of literature, but also in terms of culture,'' said Barbara McCaskill, an English professor at the University of Georgia and co-director of the Wheatley Peters Project. "We haven't granted her her due.''

A large fraction of research on Wheatley over the years has dismissed her as a Black artist pandering to white causes. But a new generation of thinkers are painting a more complete picture of the prodigy's life with new poems, archival materials, and research angles.

Not much is known about Wheatley's life before enslavement, but historians presume she was born in 1753 in West Africa. At age 7 or 8, a trader bought her from a local chief and brought her to Boston. John Wheatley, a wealthy local merchant, purchased the young girl for his wife, Susanna, and named her after the slave ship she arrived on, The Phillis.

The Wheatleys taught her to read and write, sowing the seeds for her literary abilities. After Phillis failed to secure an American publisher for her poetry book due to her race, she and her mistress' son, Nathaniel, traveled to London and made the connections to publish her work in 1773. Shortly afterward, Wheatley was emancipated and married John Peters, a pioneering freedman. She died destitute in 1784 at age 31.

Such a lack of knowledge about her life, Roberts said, made the discovery of the new poem even sweeter because it provides scholars with more clues about her relationships, day-to-day travels, and impact on communities throughout New England. "On the Death of Love Rotch'' centers on Love Macy Rotch, a prominent white member of Nantucket's community.

Much of Wheatley's legacy has been tied to Boston. But this poem's 1767 publication date would place her earliest known activity in Nantucket and illustrate why some of her first printed works were published in the towns of New Bedford and Newport, R.I.

The poem leaves room to wonder about the young poet's ventures around Nantucket, which at the time was home to a free Black community called New Guinea.

"I like to imagine that if Phillis Wheatley was in Nantucket, she was walking along the streets there in New Guinea,'' and seeing the beginnings of what would become a thriving area for Black homeownership, Roberts said. "There's a lot going on in Nantucket beyond the eyes of the Rotches that she would have been invested in, and making community there.''

Tara Bynum, an assistant professor of English and African American studies at the University of Iowa, said that people today often think of the enslaved through a lens of hopelessness and misery. The newly discovered poem, she said, provides more evidence that enslaved people could forge loving relationships, develop their own pastimes, or even find joy in poetry in spite of their lack of freedom.

"History is not this binary of Black suffering or Black joy,'' Bynum said. "Those can co-exist, and actually do co-exist in the lives of everyday Black people.''

Roberts believes the discovery could show how Wheatley's poetry turned the Quaker community's abolitionist sentiments into concrete action. Depending on the interpretation, "On the Death of Love Rotch'' communicates that everyone - enslaved, indentured, or free - should experience happiness while on Earth, instead of counting on it in the afterlife.

"There hasn't been such a focus on ... her influencing these early discussions among Quakers trying to finally get serious about abolition,'' Roberts said. "I think she's central to how they begin to change.''

Attributed to "A Negro Girl about 15 years of age,'' the newly discovered poem can't yet be attributed to Wheatley or anyone with absolute certainty. But circulators of Wheatley's work often tagged her poetry with this descriptor, making Roberts confident that she is the author.

Despite the ambiguity, the encounter was a win-win situation, as Roberts put it. "We either have another Black poet or another Wheatley poem,'' she said.

In the same book, Roberts also found "The Black Rose,'' an unnamed elegy on the death of a Black woman named Rose. If it is Wheatley's work, it would be her only known elegy to a Black woman.

New analyses show how much Wheatley's relationship with bodies of thought have evolved over the years, said Joseph Rezek, an associate English professor at Boston University and director of its American and New England Studies program. Many Black artists of the '60s wrote her off as imitating white literature. But in the decades since '70s Black feminists reclaimed her work, people have connected Wheatley to British literature, trans-Atlantic literature, African American literature, and women's literature.

Amid Roberts' discovery, a collection of scholars, students, and stakeholders is also working on a year-long commemoration of Wheatley's contributions to American literature.

Last summer, Barbara McCaskill and Sarah Ruffing Robbins, the Lorraine Sherley professor of literature at Texas Christian University, noted that the 250th publishing anniversary of "Poems on Various Subjects'' was approaching. They wondered how they could commemorate the historic milestone.

Their exchange led to the formation of the Wheatley Peters Project, a hybrid collection of events and initiatives aimed at honoring the figure's legacy. Since its January kickoff, they estimate that several dozen people have joined the core team, and at least 100 people have attended events, contributed materials, or led panel discussions.

"It's hard to count now because every week we get contacted by someone who wants to get involved,'' Robbins said. "Like Phillis Wheatley built networks, we're trying to build networks, too.''

The project has transcended national borders, as scholars from Brazil, Scotland, and England have reached out to get involved. And this summer, Mona Narain, an English professor at Texas Christian and project co-director, is hosting a discussion in Rome to explore Wheatley's love for ancient writers like Horace, Ovid, and Virgil.

Narain said the international interest in Wheatley's work proves the poet's status as a "global citizen'' and a true Bostonian. Because Boston is a city of immigrants, after all, she said.

Since the 1600s, "people from all over the world have made Boston the colorful, diverse, multilingual, and wonderful city it is'' today, Narain said. "Wheatley represents its history, its contemporaries, but also the future of Boston.''
Tiana Woodard is a Report for America corps member covering Black neighborhoods. She can be reached at tiana.woodard@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter at @tianarochon.

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Discovered poem may be first in Wheatley canon - The Boston Globe

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Among the shelves of the Historic Society of Pennsylvania's research library, a poetry scholar appears to have discovered a quintessential piece of Boston history. Written in one of its many books is the poem "On the Death of Love Rotch,'' dated 1767.

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I think Wheatley is a phenomenal writer and poet, especially given the circumstances in which she learned the English language. I think she gets judged harshly but she was still a child, probably suffering from some sort of Stockholm syndrome, and we can't hold her to the same standards as free, adult, writers of color from years later. I think she is readable and relatable, even if her activism was subtle at times