It is Women’s History Month. I love being a woman. Women’s empowerment is important to me and being able to discuss the accomplishments of women is a great thing. There are many women writers out there today. For this month I will like highlight some of these women and the first one is a poet. Poetry is used to express your feelings in less words than an essay or novel. But its impact is just as great. Today, I present to you Phyllis Wheatley.
Wheatley was the third woman and first African American to have her poetry published. On record, Wheatly was born in Gambia, Africa in 1753. She was enslaved and brought to American as a child in 1761. Wheatly was not her birth name, but that of the family she was sold to in Boston, Massachusetts. This family she was enslaved by provided her with the opportunity to receive informal education. She learned how to read during this time. In her teenage years, she went on to begin writing poetry.
Wheatly’s poetry were stories of her heritage and her fight for freedom for the enslaved. She published her first poem in 1767 and her first book pf poems in 1770. This book included a portrait of herself for the world to see who she was and the talent she had as a Black woman. Sadly, she died young in 1784 after becoming ill and she never got to publish anymore work. But the work she left is a great legacy to leave behind. Below you will find two of Phyllis Wheatley’s poems. I hope it gives you a little information from the times in which she lived and the feelings she had about creating a better future for all in America.
On 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 nor 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.
An Hymn to the Morning
Attend my lays, ye ever honour’d nine,
Assist my labours, and my strains refine;
In smoothest numbers pour the notes along,
For bright Aurora now demands my song.
Aurora hail, and all the thousand dies,
Which deck thy progress through the vaulted skies:
The morn awakes, and wide extends her rays,
On ev’ry leaf the gentle zephyr plays;
Harmonious lays the feather’d race resume,
Dart the bright eye, and shake the painted plume.
Ye shady groves, your verdant gloom display
To shield your poet from the burning day:
Calliope awake the sacred lyre,
While thy fair sisters fan the pleasing fire:
The bow’rs, the gales, the variegated skies
In all their pleasures in my bosom rise.
See in the east th’ illustrious king of day!
His rising radiance drives the shades away–
But Oh! I feel his fervid beams too strong,
And scarce begun, concludes th’ abortive song.