Meeting Phillis Wheatley's Poetry for the First Time

At Zócalo Public Square, Drea Brown recalls being introduced to Phillis Wheatley's poetry by her grandmother and the way that it shaped her outlook on life and literary proclivities into adulthood. "The poem was 'On Being Brought from Africa to America,' written by a 14-year-old Phillis in the late 18th century," writes Brown. Picking up from there: 

…It is one of her most (if not the most) anthologized poems, often accompanied by a bio-paragraph in praise of her genius and publication, despite enslavement and the (unmentioned) complexities of her brief life. Eight lines, sharp end rhymes, it is a verse of passage and piety, of gratitude (but to whom?).

’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 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.

As a child I stumbled through its meaning; I did not understand why I had to read it or why this enslaved poet I wanted to praise seemed to praise God for her captors. How was this “Mercy”? How was being bought and bought a saving grace? And what of that July heat in 1761 when the small slaver docked in Boston? Was there a stage set, an auction block? Was it a storefront? Did someone grab hard her frail wrist when she was brought before the gawkers, the could-be purchasers, the soon-to-be-masters John and Susanna Wheatley?

Continue reading at Zócalo Public Square.