POETRY READING BLOG SEPTEMBER 8TH 2020

 PHYLLIS WHEATLEY AND HONOREE JEFFERS

I am placing them side by side, as Phyllis became such a very powerful talisman for Honoree.

"In every human breast, God has implanted a principle which we call love of freedom: it is impatient of oppression and pants for deliverance."

Phyllis Wheatley

There is a blue plaque in Aldgate which commemorates the site of Phylliss' first publisher. See link below. The site is a useful place for anyone interested in exploring London's black history.

https://londonist.com/london/history/phillis-wheatley

For a mere bagatelle, her poems are still in print and readily available.

Much of the "official" (and somewhat sanitised) information about the life of Phyllis comes from a book "The Memoir and Poems of Phyllis Wheatley, A Native African and a Slave" which was published fifty years after Phyllis died and written by a woman called Margaretta Matilda Odell who described herself as a descendent of Susannah Wheatly, the woman who purchased and raised Phyllis. Odell, like many of the abolitionists of the time, is intent on on pushing a well meaning message to promote anti-slavery.

Honoree Fanonne Jeffers however writes "As we look back on this era, the kindness of the Wheatleys must be viewed through a complex prism, for slavery was a scatalogical, morally bankrupt enterprise....beside Phyllis, the Wheatley's owned at least one other slave. There are no public records of them raising their voice publically or acting overtly against the institution of slavery". Her research has also revealed that  Odell's biography is full of undocumented speculations, and blatant falsehoods. 

Phyllis's poetry when it was published in London caused a stir, which highlighted both the racism of the "Enlightment" (yes, you Immanuel Kant) and the hypocrisy of the American Revolution (yes, you Thomas Jefferson) with its emphasis on freedom and liberty (for white men, that is). The latter considered her poetry "below the dignity of criticism".

Honoree Fanonne Jeffer's book of poems about Phyllis and slavery is called The Age of Phyllis and is published by the Wesleyan Poetry Press.

I would also recommend Henry Louise Gates Junior's book The Trials of Phyllis Wheatley: America's First Black Poet and Her Encounter's with the Founding Fathers.

OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS

Many thanks to Barbara for her link.

Thanks too to Kate for the material she sent on Dido Elizabeth Belle. It was particularly relevant as there is a poem in Honoree's book about the slave ship Zong.

I am sure many of you know the story and it has a central place in Britain's abolition history, but I'll add it in in case not everyone knows.

The slave ship the Zong left the coast of Africa on 6th September 1781 with 470 slaves. Because slaves were such a valuable commodity most  captains took on more slaves than their ships could accommodate in order to maximize their profits.  The  captain, Luke Collingwood, overloaded his ship with slaves and by the  29th  November many of them had begun to die from disease and malnutrition. The Zong became becalmed in the Doldrums .  As the ship sat stranded,  seven of the 17 crew members and over 50 slaves died from sickness.

Increasingly desperate, Collingwood decided to “jettison” some of the cargo in order to save the ship and give  the ship owners the opportunity to claim on their insurance. Over the next week the remaining crew members threw 132 slaves who were sick and dying over the side. Another 10 slaves threw themselves overboard in what Collingwood later described as an “Act of Defiance.”

When the Zong reached Jamaica  James Gregson, the ship’s owner, filed an insurance claim for their loss arguing the ship did not have enough water  to sustain both crew and the slaves. The insurance underwriter, Thomas Gilbert, disputed the claim citing that the Zong had 420 gallons of water aboard when she was inventoried in Jamaica. Despite this the Jamaican court in 1782 found in favour of the owners. The insurers appealed the case in 1783  provoking a great deal of public interest and the leading abolitionist at the time, Granville Sharp, used the deaths of the slaves to increase public awareness about the slave trade and further the anti-slavery cause, using the word massacre.

Dido's great uncle  William Murray, the Earl of Mansfield and the Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, ordered a second trial.  Mansfield presided and ruled in favour of the insurers. He also held that the cargo had been poorly managed as the captain should have made a suitable allowance of water for each slave.

Sharp attempted to have criminal charges brought against the Captain, crew, and the owners but was unsuccessful.  The Solicitor General, Justice John Lee, however, refused to take up the criminal charges claiming “What is this claim that human people have been thrown overboard? This is a case of chattels or goods. Blacks are goods and property; it is madness to accuse these well-serving honourable men of murder… The case is the same as if wood had been thrown overboard.”

Although those who were responsible for the  massacre were never brought to justice, the event itself increased the profile of abolitionists and brought new converts including Thomas Clarkson and Reverend John Ramsay.  They in turn inspired the actions of William Wilberforce who led the successful campaign to have Parliament abolish slavery throughout the British Empire in 1833.

I don't know if people remember, but a replica of the Zong sailed up the Thames in 2007, to commemorate the Abolition of Slavery.

This all seems so relevant as I read an obituary of the actor and campaigner Chadwick Boseman which mentioned Phyllis Wheatly and the Black Lives Matter movement have been eulogising the enormous courage of the chained slaves who leapt overboard themselves in a final gesture of contempt and defiance.

EXTRA POEM

The Parakeets

They talk all day

and when it starts to get dark

they lower their voices

to converse with their own shadows

and with the silence.

They are like everybody

—the parakeets—

all day chatter,

and at night bad dreams.

They talk all day

and when it starts to get dark

they lower their voices

to converse with their own shadows

and with the silence.

With their gold rings

on their clever faces,

brilliant feathers

and the heart restless

with speech…

They are like everybody,

—the parakeets—

the ones that talk best

have separate cages.

Alberto Blanco

I chose this in memory of poetry once having being part of the school curriculum. Randomly going into a site for children and picking this (with profound apologies to gardeners) as parakeets always lift my heart and make me think of India.

FINALLY

Ann is doing tomorrow's poem. Following week's poem to be decided tomorrow.

Hope you all thrive.

Elizabeth