How should there be Black poets in America?
It was not natural. And she was the first. It was 1761—so far back before the revolution that produced these United States, so far back before the concept of freedom disturbed the insolent crimes of this continent—in 1761, when seven year old Phillis stood, as she must, when she stood nearly naked, as small as a seven year old, by herself, standing on land at last, at last after the long, annihilating horrors of the Middle Passage. Phillis, standing on the auctioneer’s rude platform: Phillis For Sale.
Was it a nice day?
Does it matter? Should she muse on the sky or remember the sea? Until then Phillis had been somebody’s child. Now she was about to become somebody’s slave.
Suzannah and John Wheatley finished their breakfast and ordered the carriage brought ‘round. They would ride to the auction. This would be an important outing. They planned to buy yet another human being to help with the happiness of their comfortable life in Boston. You don’t buy a human being, you don’t purchase a slave, without thinking ahead. So they had planned this excursion. They were dressed for the occasion, and excited, probably. And experienced, certainly. The Wheatley’s already owned several slaves. They had done this before; the transaction would not startle or confound or embarrass or appall either one of them.
Was it a nice day?
It was not natural. And she was the first. It was 1761—so far back before the revolution that produced these United States, so far back before the concept of freedom disturbed the insolent crimes of this continent—in 1761, when seven year old Phillis stood, as she must, when she stood nearly naked, as small as a seven year old, by herself, standing on land at last, at last after the long, annihilating horrors of the Middle Passage. Phillis, standing on the auctioneer’s rude platform: Phillis For Sale.
Was it a nice day?
Does it matter? Should she muse on the sky or remember the sea? Until then Phillis had been somebody’s child. Now she was about to become somebody’s slave.
Suzannah and John Wheatley finished their breakfast and ordered the carriage brought ‘round. They would ride to the auction. This would be an important outing. They planned to buy yet another human being to help with the happiness of their comfortable life in Boston. You don’t buy a human being, you don’t purchase a slave, without thinking ahead. So they had planned this excursion. They were dressed for the occasion, and excited, probably. And experienced, certainly. The Wheatley’s already owned several slaves. They had done this before; the transaction would not startle or confound or embarrass or appall either one of them.
Was it a nice day?
June Jordan, “The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in America or Something Like a Sonnet for Phillis Wheatley” February, 1985 (via negrosunshine)
(via guerrillamamamedicine)
