The power of the pen never ceases to amaze me. It can liberate those who are even bound by physical means, and its force and impact can reach across time and space.
I am reminded of this today because 339 years ago, Anne Bradstreet, the first published colonial poet, left this world. Though she had already published a book of poetry in England, it was her work in the 'New World' that reflected her pioneering spirit and readiness to challenge the status quo--especially that of women in this newly-forming American society. She writes
I am obnoxious to each carping tongue, Who sayes, my hand a needle better fits, A Poets Pen, all scorne, I should thus wrong; For such despighte they cast on female wits: If what i doe prove well, it wo'nt advance, They'l say its stolen, or else, it was by chance.
She also adds, "Let Greeks be Greeks, and women what they are."
Bradstreet may have been understated, but her message is clear. And it had an impact that extended to the next poet to be published during the colonial era, Phillis Wheatley.
A century after Bradstreet, Wheatley became not only the second published poet but the first African American published author--all while remaining enslaved.
Wheatley was taken to America from Gambia, West Africa when she was seven, and sold into slavery. She not only mastered English by age 14 (she published her first poem at that age), but shortly thereafter educated herself in Latin and the Classics and produced a widely-lauded translation of the niobe episode from Book VI of Ovid's
Metamorphoses. In 1772, her first volume of poetry was published in London, where she went 'on tour' and received accolades from such luminaries as Benjamin Franklin and Voltaire. After achieving international acclaim, Wheatley writes, her owner, John Wheatley, finally saw fit to "give me my freedom.” Therefore, Phillis Wheatley was the first African American to free herself by means of her own writing ability.
Tragically, due to myriad factors, including racial discrimination, Wheatley died forgotten and impoverished in 1884 from complications after child birth.
Despite her tragic ending, as widely noted by scholars throughout the world, Phillis Wheatley represents a number of firsts in American culture. She is the first published African American author and also the first woman who published her work largely through the efforts of a community of women: her mistress, Susanna, seems always to have encouraged her to write, and her daughter, Mary, may have served as the poet's first tutor; Obour Tanner, her black soulmate, evidently gave Wheatley encouragement and spiritual counsel, but it was probably through the efforts of Selina Hastings, the Countess of Huntingdon, that she saw one of her volumes come into print. Wheatley also enjoys the distinction of being America's first woman writer who tried to make a living by the use of her pen, and she is certainly one of America's first authors, whether man or woman, to do so. In addition, Wheatley is one of America's first writers to cultivate for publication the epistolary style. According to Henry Louis Gates Jr., she is “the progenitor of the black literary tradition.”
So, today, and every day, we salute these remarkable women and the power of the pen, for it freed them both and continues to offer
light and inspiration to us all.
