Back in the day I penned a paean to rap poet Benjamin Zephaniah so it’s time for another, this time for 250 years of the Black Bard, Phillis Wheatley.
Phillis being a traveller like ourselves, entranced by London’s bright lights.
But as a black teenager of her time, Phillis was a slave, from West Africa via Boston, Massachusetts.
The young poet had arrived in Britain’s capital in 1773, the same year as the Boston Tea Party.
As the chattel of Nathaniel Wheatley, the adult son of the family who had bought her in Boston in 1761.
To see her collection, Poems on various subjects, published by Archibald Bell.
All of which came about through the family’s connections with Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon.
A Bostonian abroad
Educated as they were Phillis had clearly learned well her Homer, Horace, Virgil, Pope and Milton.
And had been writing poetry from the age of 12.
With her first published poem appearing in the Rhode Island in 1767.
Although she was unsuccessful in getting her collection published in Boston in 1772 which brought her to London.
That Phillis loved and was inspired by London (and who wouldn’t be?) we know from her letter to a Connecticut acquaintance, Colonel David Wooster, dated October 18, 1773.
Where she goes into some fine and excitable detail about the charms and attractions of London.
Tour of London
‘Grenville Sharp Esqr. Who attended me to the Tower & Show’d the Lions, Panthers, Tigers, &c. the Horse Armoury, small Armoury, the Crowns, Sceptres, Diadems, the Font for christening the Royal Family.
‘Saw Westminster Abbey, British Museum, Coxe’s Museum, Saddler’s wells, Greenwich Hospital, Park and Chapel, The royal Observatory at Greenwich, &c. &c. too many things & Places to trouble you with in a Letter.’
What the humble Phillis didn’t mention though was who she met among the great and good, among them Benjamin Franklin.
While she was beckoned to see King George III, only she was on her way home by then.
Free, free at last
The said Grenvill Sharp Esqr was an abolitionist who was involved in a test case, the Somersett case.
Where The Lord Chief Justice ruled that enslaved African James Somersett brought to England from Boston by his owner, could not be legally forced to return to the colonies.
All of which helped our heroine and she was freed on her return to Boston.
She went on to marry, but died of chronic asthma at the tender age of 31.
Alas, as is the way with prophets in their own land, Phillis was not published in her adopted city of Boston until the 1830s.
While she remains relatively anonymous, and untaught, in Britain.
As do many black authors as I discovered when I asked in a bookshop if they had any Zepheniah…
All of which sparked me as I prepared for my Forth Stanza poetry show into penning my Ode to Zephaniah.
Ode to Zepheniah
I searched for Zepheniah
I searched lower I searched higher
Along the rows of shelves
Past Wordsworth, Yeats did I delve
Until I reached the Z,
And behind me poets dead,
But it all runs out at Y,
And so deflated, with a sigh,
I went over to reception,
To confront the shop’s deception,
And ask what happened to the Z,
And this is what she said,
‘There’s no-one with that letter,
‘And would you not be better,
‘To try a different author,
‘She didn’t want the bother,
‘Of spelling Zepheniah,
‘And so she did enquire,
‘If I’d read Andrew Motion’
Of him I had no notion.
‘The Poet Laureate I was told.
‘And how many copies has he sold’
‘I’ll check the other store.’
And as she hung on the blower
I thought about the others,
Perhaps Benjamin’s sisters, brothers,
Deleted from the alphabet,
Because poets’ names don’t start with Z.
A word or two from Phillis
I’d like to think I stand comparison with Phillis… I’d like to.
Judge for yourself with this offering from ‘One Being Brought From Africa to America’.
‘TWAS mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
‘Taught my benighted soul to understand
‘That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too:
‘Once I redemption neither sought now knew,
‘Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
‘Their colour is a diabolic die.’
‘Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,
‘May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.’
So, in this Black History Month, a mark of 250 years of the Black Bard, Phillis Wheatley.