Episode 3: Phillis Wheatley, On Being Brought from Africa to America

Hello, I'm Joanne Diaz, a poet and English professor at Illinois Wesleyan University. And I'm a remaining and an English professor at Washington University in St. Louis. And this is poetry for all. This podcast is for those who already love poetry and for those who know very little about it. In this podcast, we'll read a poem, discuss it, learn from it, and then read it one more time. And today we're going to take a close look at a difficult poem by one of the founding figures of African American literary traditions, on being brought from Africa to America by Phyllis Wheatley. Should I read this? Yes, please. On being brought from Africa to America, Twos Mercy brought me from my pagan land, taught my benited soul to understand that there's a God, that there's a Savior, too. Once I redemption, neither sought nor knew. Some view our Sable race with scornful eye. Their color is a diabetic die. Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as came, may be refined and join the angelic train. This is an amazing poem. Abram, could you tell us a little bit about who Phyllis Wheatley was and why she still matters so much? Yes, so Phyllis Wheatley is a really important figure. She was born in West Africa in 1753. She was kidnapped and enslaved. She survived the middle passage, was sold into slavery in 1761 to the Wheatley family at the age of seven or eight. And they saw immediately just how brilliant she was, so they gave her books. She began to write and she was not the first African American writer in the American tradition, but she's the first African American to publish a book of poems in America in 1773. So she becomes this really important founding figure in African American literary traditions. And she continues to be influential to this day. Just for two examples of many, I can't help but think of a poetic sequence that Cornelius Edie has been working on that's inspired by the life and work of Phyllis Wheatley. And of course, honorary Phanon Jeffers just came out with a magnificent poetry collection called The Age of Phyllis, which draws upon archival materials and the life and work of Phyllis Wheatley. And honorary Phanon Jeffers is incorporating some of that inspiration to create her own sequence of poems. Yeah. And with all that said, I mean, I think it's important to note that for a long time nobody knew quite what to do with her work. And in part because of poems like this, this is a difficult poem. On the one hand, it seems like she is grateful to slavery because it brought her to Christ. And that's a very difficult position to take. And especially difficult as a sort of founding figure of African American literary traditions. So I think it's important to walk through this poem line by line to show that that's not in fact what she's saying in this poem. So maybe we should just begin at the beginning with those first three lines. Okay. Let's take a look at those because I think these first three lines do what you suggest. If you want to read this poem with that meaning that you were just describing, it looks like it's there. And you see it's not, "Twas mercy brought me from my pagan land, taught my benighted soul to understand that there's a God, that there's a savior too. What would you say is happening between Phyllis Wheatley and her audience or what she's perceiving as her audience in these lines, Abraham?" So I think one important thing to understand about Wheatley is she has to speak in a language that will let her speak while still saying what she wants to say. And that's really what this poem is all about and a lot of what her poetry is about. These three opening lines in effect open the door for her. So for a white audience that sees no problem with slavery and in fact wants to bless it as bringing Christianity to a pagan land, these are the lines that allow her to speak. And at the same time, these lines begin to undermine that very philosophy. So the word mercy for example, it's on the one hand compassion shown to a powerless person, which is of course exactly what does not happen with the enslavement of Africans. On the other hand, it's a religious term for forgiveness. And finally, it's a term that draws our attention to power dynamics. So when we talk about being at the mercy of, we see that power dynamic is at the very heart of mercy itself. So Twas mercy brought me from my pagan land. What do you see else happening in these three lines? I'm very intrigued by the word be knighted. Twas mercy brought me from my pagan land. It was mercy that taught my be knighted soul to understand that there's a God, that there's a savior too. Her soul was be knighted. It was in darkness before it could understand Christianity. But there's a problem there because the very people who have introduced her to this God and to this savior are practicing slavery. They are complicit in the institution of slavery, which means that they are not yet fully accessing the message of Christ, right? Right. So when I see those lines, the very people that teach her there's a God are the same people who by their actions are teaching her that they need a savior. So taught my be knighted soul to understand that there's a God, they bring her this sort of Christian God and by enslaving her teacher that they are not in fact saved by this God, that they need a savior, that a savior is needed. That really helps me understand how the poem then shifts to the next line. Line 4 says, "Once I redemption neither sought nor knew." Basically she's saying, "There was a time in my life when I lived in Africa, when I neither sought redemption nor even knew what it was, to a Christian audience this might sound like a bad thing." Because redemption in a Christian context would be something that you might want. Could you say a bit about how you read that line even? Yeah, so I think there's two important aspects of this line. The first thing she's saying is there was a time in my life when I existed on other terms altogether that you could not define. But the other important thing about this line is that word redemption. Her spiritual terms in this poem turn our attention to slavery again and again, and this word does so as well. Redemption is of course a kind of spiritual term about conversion to be forgiven, to be turned to God, but it is also a financial term to be bought back, to be redeemed. And so she's also saying in this line, "There was a time in my life when I did not know that human beings could be bought and sold. Once I redemption neither sought nor knew, she didn't know that this kind of evil was even possible in the world." Oh my God, that's a completely different reading than what might be there initially on the surface. That's incredible. So just by virtue of word choice, which she's doing so beautifully in this tiny poem, every single word matters. And I'm intrigued by how in that line she takes something like redemption, which is something that seems desirable, but then she adds this financial valence to it that's really a critique. And then she shifts in an amazing way to the next two lines. She is able to think about what others say about people of African descent. "Their color is a diabolic die." Could you talk about how she incorporates that white quote into the poem? Yeah, so if you're just listening to this poem and haven't read it before, you might not know that that line, "Their color is a diabolic die," is in quotation marks. She is literally giving voice to the white supremacy that is around her. And in doing that, as a black poet, she is in a certain sense undermining it. So we talk about mimicry and its various functions and forms. There's a form of mimicry that is a kind of subversion to give back to the people who are enslaving you, the very words that they are using to enslave you. But to voice them yourself is to hollow them out, to show it up for what it is. That's amazing. And then, you know, after that moment in which she's hollowed out that quote, as you say, when she's created this indictment and this critique of the quote, she finishes the poem this way. And it's truly amazing. Remember Christians, Negroes, black as cane may be refined and join the angelic train. There's a lot going on in that penultimate line. Remember comma, Christians comma, Negroes comma, black as cane. Could you say a little bit about what she's setting up with those commas? So I think there's a few things that she's doing to have a graphically that really matter. One is she's using italics to draw attention to certain words. So if you look at the italics in the seventh line, it's Christians, Negroes, cane. There's a kind of equivalence in those words because of the italics that draws their attention to them. But we really know there's an equivalence in those words because of where she puts the commas in this line. She puts a comma after the word "remember." When I teach this poem, I often describe that comma as the most famous comma in American literature. And the reason is because if it's not there, this poem has an entirely different meaning. So if it's not there, that line reads as follows. Remember Christians that Negroes are black as cane. But the fact that that comma is there makes it read this way. Remember dear reader, that Christians and Negroes are black as cane. So the fact of the comma shows us that she's writing for an audience that We'll see what she is up to at 6 o'clock. some point in time while at the same time allowing a different audience in her own day to see whatever they want to see in this poem. And we know from her other poems that she knew exactly what she was doing. This punctuation is not an accident. She is speaking to an audience who in the future will see exactly how much she is inditing the Christian slavers who are at the same time bringing her to Christ. That is amazing. And I think too, again, word choice. So not only do you need to really slow down and think about every bit of punctuation, every way that she's engaging with syntax. But the word choices here are once again very deliberate and really incredible. Remember Christians, Negroes, Black as Cain may be refined and join the angelic train. Refined sounds so lovely there, right? There's a very important valence to that word choice as well, isn't there? Yes, absolutely. I think it's really important to notice the levels at what she's working here. So on the one hand, she's speaking to one audience in her own day and to a future audience. She is also speaking in spiritual terms with words that direct our attention to the physical and material conditions of slavery. So redemption happened that way. So does refined. The word Black as Cain draws our attention to the word refined because Cain is a reference not just to the first murderer in the Bible, the first bloodshed in the Bible, but also to the production of sugarcane, which was at this time in the 18th century, the main driver of slavery. So the slave trade really revolved around the production of sugarcane in the Caribbean. And she knows that and she's drawing our attention to that. And the other thing about sugarcane is that it is dark before it is refined. So if you think about molasses, molasses is dark, that's unrefined. The refining process is what turns it white. And so she is even in these spiritual terms about Cain enable and refinement and redemption and so on. She is still talking also about slavery. It is Christians who are driving slavery for the production of sugarcane who needs spiritually to be refined. This is an amazing example of how a poem can change based on just the layers of meaning that you extract from the word choices, from understanding the material conditions in which she wrote the poem, what she was responding to, and what she was critiquing. It's absolutely amazing. Yeah, and just to reiterate this point, which I think is so important. Last week we talked about how poetry is often about telling all the truth, but tell us land. So much of African-American literary traditions has been in a certain sense forced into that position. They have to tell all the truth, but tell us land because they have to show one audience what they want to see while also speaking to another audience what they actually want to say. That double-ness is absolutely extraordinary. It just further reveals her rhetorical virtuosity. She's an extraordinary poet in every way. Absolutely. Would you be willing to read this poem for us? Yes. On being brought from Africa to America by Phyllis Wheely. "To as mercy brought me from my pagan land, taught my benited soul to understand that there's a god, that there's a savior too. Once I redemption neither sought nor knew. Their color is a diabolic die. Remember Christians, Negroes, Black as Cain may be refined and join the angelic train." Thank you. For more on Phyllis Wheely, including links to recent important works by Cornelius Edie, Anarei Fanon, Jeffers, and others, please do see our website. And please follow poetry for all on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.