The Age of Phillis

Poems imagine the life and times of Phillis Wheatley Peters n nNAACP Image Award Winner for Outstanding Literary Work for Poetry n2020 National Book Award for Poetry, Longlist n2020 LA Times Book Award Finalist n nIn 1773, a young, African American woman named Phillis Wheatley Peters published a book of poetry that challenged Western prejudices about African and female intellectual capabilities. Based on fifteen years of archival research, The Age of Phillis, by award-winning writer Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, imagines the life and times of Wheatley: her childhood in the Gambia, West Africa, her life with her white American owners, her friendship with Obour Tanner, and her marriage to the enigmatic John Peters. Woven throughout are poems about Wheatley's age--the era that encompassed political, philosophical, and religious upheaval, as well as the transatlantic slave trade. For the first time in verse, Wheatley's relationship to black people and their individual mercies is foregrounded, and here we see her as not simply a racial or literary symbol, but a human being who lived and loved while making her indelible mark on history. n nmothering #1 nYaay, Someplace in the Gambia, c. 1753 n nafter nthe after-birth nis delivered nthe mother stops nholding her breath nthe mid-wife gives nwhat came before nher just-washed pain nher insanity pain nan undeserved pain na God-given pain noh oh oh pain ndrum-talking pain nwitnessing pain nAllah na mother offers nYou this gift nprays You find nit acceptable nher living pain nher creature pain nher pretty-little-baby npain