Rhyme and Reason

Anew biography of poet Phillis Wheatley explores the life of the first African and third woman in the American colonies to publish a book of poems and what her voice might mean to us now.

- FARAH JASMINE GRIFFIN

Phillis Wheatley, the enslaved prodigy poet, has fascinated readers since the 18th century, even before the 1773 publication of her volume, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. David Waldstreicher's expansive new biography, The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet's Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence, is sure to inspire new generations with the story of the genius child, brought to America on the slave ship Phillis, for which she was named by her mistress, Susanna Wheatley, who soon discovered and helped to nurture her intellectual and literary gifts. Hailed as a marvel, a miracle even, taught to read English by Susanna and her daughter, she soon penned odes and elegies to and for the elite generation that led America to revolution. They responded in turn. George Washington corresponded with her, Benjamin Franklin visited her in London, and Thomas Jefferson wrote a disparaging, white supremacist assessment of her literary capacity. Her name has graced schools and other organizations and institutions in Black communities nationwide.