June Jordan describes the difficult miracle of Black Poetry in America by highlighting Phillis Wheatley’s experience as America’s first Black published poet, and second female published poet. She had a motivational force inside her soul to write, even in the face of being sold as property. Her new masters saw that force in her too, and were compelled to give her access to literacy. Phillis had the ability to penetrate the white world of literacy through her slavery. At the age of fourteen she published her first poem, “To the University of Cambridge,” where she describes the miracle of her own Black poetry in America as a result of "an intrinsic ardor," her own desire that created herself a poet, despite everything around her. She acknowledges that the kindness of the of Wheatley’s to teach her literacy and expose her to white literature played a role, but becoming a poet was not dependent on those factors. Her desire to articulate her identity was the driving force for her success as a poet.
How does the concept of the difficult miracle relate to black thought and early African American writing? The difficult miracle of Black poetry in America is that Black people have been rejected and are frequently dismissed "insignificant" because, like Phillis Wheatley, Black people have persisted for freedom. Black people have dealt with the duality of how white people see them versus how they see themselves since slavery; even though she was physically captive, her mind was her own. Phillis had the audacity to write the truth; she was most free in her skin as a poet because her voice was amplified and taken seriously by white people. She wrote about the hungering and the quandaries of African lives on North American soil. She forced white America to hear the voices of Black America through her poetry. The study of white literature requires Black people to assimilate the English language and its English values; as long as Black poets remain subordinate and not speak the truth of the Black experience, then they will be beloved, sheltered, published, and praised.
Listen to June Jordan recite her poem "About My Rights":
Visit the Phillis Wheatley sculpture at the Boston Women's Memorial:
Listen to Lost Love Letter #14, a love letter written to Phillis Wheatley by her husband John Peters:
Visit Revolutionary Spaces to learn more: https://www.revolutionaryspaces.org/exhibits/imagining-the-age-of-phillis/lost-letters-john/
Learn more about Phillis Wheatley:
Sources:
Jordan, June. “The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in America or Something like a Sonnet for Phillis Wheatley.” The Massachusetts Review 27, no. 2 (1986): 252–62. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25089756.