Interview With Phillis Wheatley

This blog will look at the life of Phillis Wheatley, a slave and poet who lived in the mid-eighteenth century in Boston, Massachusetts. In order to help you understand more about her life, I will post some important information about her, based on questions I had when I did the research on her life.

It is winter, 1784...

MRS. B: Good morning, Mistress Wheatley. It's a pleasure to meet you. I've read your poetry and I enjoy it. I'm curious, though. I read somewhere that you were born in Africa. How did you come to be living in America?

PW: Good morning! I am happy to be here. Yes, I was born in Senegal, but when I was eight years old, I was taken by force from my home and brought to Boston. John Wheatley bought me as a personal servant for his wife, Susanna. My last name is theirs because that was the custom then - slaves were given the last names of their masters.

MRS. B: How interesting. I guess that means you used to speak French. It must have been hard for you to learn English, and yet your work is in English. Tell me how that happened.

PW: When I got to Boston, the Wheatleys taught me English. In fact, they gave me an education, although I was a slave. I was also taught some Latin, ancient history, mythology and classical literature. I was well educated, for a slave. (She smiles at that.) I had a very unique existence. I was not a member of their family, but I didn't fit in with the other slaves, either, because I was educated, and could read and write. I was fortunate that they allowed me to write, and I developed a love for poetry.

MRS. B: I understand that you had a very interesting life. You were freed, you married, and had children. Can you give me more details about all that?

PW: I began to write and publish poems after I was returned from a trip to England with my master's son, Nathaniel. My mistress was very ill, and I was needed at home. Before they died, I wrote a poem for George Washington which he read and he enjoyed. I have written many poems for him. Eventually, both my master and mistress died, and I married John Peters, a free black man. We had a hard life, because he couldn't find steady employment, and we lost two children. All this was happening during the American Revolution, so life was hard for us. I have had a few of my poems published, but now that John is no longer here, I have to work as a scullery maid. I have very little time to write.

"Cogito, ergo scribo!" (I think, therefore I write!)

February 1, 2008

I am a writer. It's what I do when I wake up first thing in the morning. I say hello to three friends, who always send me an IM overnight. One of my friends lives in Australia, another in England, the third in Pennsylvania. It's bedtime in Australia now, and afternoon in England.

But I digress. I say hello to each of these three friends every morning before I leave my house. Usually I can't wait for them to reply, because I leave my house early (or late, for my friend in Australia!), but I know that if I check later in the day, they will have answered me. I love to get their answers. They make me laugh, or cry, or smile, depending on what they tell me.

February 4, 2008

Sorry! I told you, I think, therefore I write. It's been a couple of days now, since I first began writing this, and in the interim, I have written a thre part series on midlife crises for women, two blogs on African American music, in honor of Black History Month, and an excerpt of a story. I am always writing.

Why, this morning, before coming here to class to finish this blog, I wrote the rest of a course description for a senior English class that I'm teaching. And I had to post a couple of comments on a couple of friends' pages about blogs they had posted, and I sent an e-mail note to the principal.

If I were unable to write, to compose, I think I'd shrivel up and die. I need it, like I need air, and blood, and food, and water, to live. Everything on this blog is about me. it shows you who I am, what I think about things, where my interests and affections lie. To get to know me - I mean REALLY know me - you'll need to read my work.

Ode to Joy

I was thinking, as I went to work this morning, and then again as I came home early, while -the-sun-was- still-up early, of how much I enjoy the young folk in my family. Last weekend, we went to Binghamton to watch our children celebrate their engagement, and to participate with them in their joy. This weekend my parents and my niece, as well as the newly-engageds, were in my house, and the joy of their presence is still with me, even now, as I wait for my niece to tell me she's boarded the train in Manhattan to take her back to Providence, Rhode Island, where she is a sophomore in college.

There was laughter in my house, the kind I sometimes share with the girls, but not often enough. There was light, and sound, and energy. Even my parents, struggling with health issues, seemed to be happily affected by the gay mood in the house. I didn't cook a lot - though you wouldn't know that to see the amount of the leftovers - so it can't be about the food. We didn't DO a lot, though my niece turned twenty on Sunday, and we took her to dinner and a movie.

There was just a joie de vivre, a spirit of love and laughter, of pleasure in each other's company, that I have not experienced for a long time. It was sweet...and I savor it still.

Of course, I wrote a poem...can you blame me?

ODE TO JOIE DE VIVRE


Some day
when I am old, and gray,
and all my limbs are feeble,
I will recall that day, when we
were all together, sharing one
last happy laugh...

...joie de vivre.

Some evening
when I am worn, and weak,
and every beat is more
than I can bear to feel,
I will review that hour, when we
all sat together, sharing one
last funny tale...

...joie de vivre.

Some morning
when I am slow, and dull,
and every step unwilling,
more than I would make,
I will reset the hour, when we
all loved together, sharing one
last happy hour...

...joie de vivre.


(c) Copyright 2007 by Teri Bannerman

Time in a Bottle

I love this song...so simple, so profound, so sensual! Enjoy!

HERE'S TO TEACHERS!

Whoever said "He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches." (and I know who he was!) was a blaspehmous, unappreciative jerk, and short-sighted to boot! If it weren't for teachers, who would make the rocket ships? Who would perform the open heart surgeries? Who would replace the lost limbs? Who would write the Nobel-winning literature? Who would keep the peace?

Hurray for teachers, I say (and that includes hurraying for me!)! What a sad, primitive world this would be without us! No matter how you disrespect us, you can't live without us! Yes we CAN! We TEACH!

Reflections on a Life...(Nostalgia...or Growing Up, Again)

So there we were, driving along in Yonkers, on the I87, about to exit on Central Park Avenue, and suddenly the tears were right there...behind the lids, behind the whites, behind the brown eyeballs. They welled up, and sneaked down my cheeks. I tried to resist the urge to wipe them away. I lost that battle...

It's 1983. I am 24 years old and newly married, living in my sister's house (no, she's in the US then), working in a Catholic public hgh school (someday, maybe, I'll explain that phenomenon!). My husband is teaching art in another secondary school. We are poor - teachers in Jamaica then made precious little. But we were contented. We owe no one anything, aside from student loans. We love the work we do. We have an extended family, in case of emergency.

It's 2007. I am 48 years old and 24 years married, living in our fairly newly-built house, working in a prestigious New York City public high school. My husband is an assistant principal in another New York City public high school. We are not poor, but what we are defies explanation, or, quite frankly, understanding. We owe everyone, including student loans for our sons. We wonder about the work we do. We have an extended family, who often depend on us in an emergency.

The feelings that overwhelm me in the car are so powerful, it is all I can do not to cry out with the pain of them. I know now, in an instant, what "heart-wrenching" means. It isn't that I wish for "the good ole days" back, although I do. It isn't even that I worry about the bad new days, although I do.

It's more that I cannot fathom the losses I have sustained, in my pursuit of the gains. The questions I live with now would never have occurred to me, naive as I was all those years ago. And my inability to find even the glimmer of an answer that does not tease more tears from my already leaking eyes, or wrench them from my aching heart, is the most frightening feeling I have ever known.

Perhaps, one day I'll get it. Maybe when I'm older...

Ha! I AM older, and I get nothing!

Maybe when I'm wiser... *sigh*

Did You Know...

1) Elephants are the only animals that cannot jump.

2) The body's strongest muscle is our tongue.

3) A pigs orgasm lasts 30 minutes!!

4) Statistically, people are moreafraid of spiders than of dying.

5) All polar bears are left handed.

6) Crocodiles cannot stick out their tongue.

7) Butterflies taste with their feet.

8) A cockroach can live 9 days without it's head. It only dies because it cannot eat.

9) Humans and Dolphins are the only animals that have sex for pleasure.

10) A duck's quack has no echoe.

11) Starfish have no brains.

12) Mosquitoes have teeth.

13) Thomas Edison was afraid of the dark.

14) The word "Cemetery" comes from the Greek Koimetirion wich means Dormitory.