Celebrate Black History 2021 - Phillis Wheatley

by Dick Mac

Phillis Wheatley was born a free woman c.1753, somewhere in West Africa, and died of unknown causes on December 5, 1784, in Boston, Massachusetts. She was 31.

Phillis Wheatley was purchased by slave traders in West Africa, and enslaved by John Wheatley and his wife as a servant, in Boston. Unlike most enslaved Africans, she learned to read and write, and her captors encouraged her talent for poetry.  In 1773 she travelled with her captors to London to find a publisher for her work.  Her "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral" was published that year, received with enthusiasm and brought her fame (and money) in both England and the Colonies. Wheatley was emancipated after the publication of her book. 

Hers is an unusual story, because her captors educated her and she became fluent in Greek and Latin by the time she was a teenager. Her skills were recognized by the Wheatley's and she was relieved of her household duties so she could write. During the time she was with the Wheatleys, she enjoyed the attention of patrons and benefactors, but shortly after her freedom, all support stopped, she married, lost two children at birth, became impoverished when her husband was sent to debtor's prison, worked as a maid, and died in 1784. Her third, surviving infant child died shortly thereafter.

The years of her success were not easy. Colonists refused to believe that an African could write poetry and she was required to defend her work in court. Her testimony resulted in a finding by her judges, including John Hancock, that she had indeed composed her work. That attestation was included in the preface of her book.

There is much controversy about her legacy, but none of the criticisms and critiques of her history diminish the fact that she was the first African-American woman to publish a book of poetry and earn payment for her literary work.

Her poem "A Hymn to the Evening" is posted here here, without permission:

Soon as the sun forsook the eastern main

The pealing thunder shook the heav'nly plain;

Majestic grandeur! From the zephyr's wing,

Exhales the incense of the blooming spring.

Soft purl the streams, the birds renew their notes,

And through the air their mingled music floats.

Through all the heav'ns what beauteous dies are spread!

But the west glories in the deepest red:

So may our breasts with ev'ry virtue glow,

The living temples of our God below!

Fill'd with the praise of him who gives the light,

And draws the sable curtains of the night,

Let placid slumbers sooth each weary mind,

At morn to wake more heav'nly, more refin'd;

So shall the labours of the day begin

More pure, more guarded from the snares of sin.

Night's leaden sceptre seals my drowsy eyes,

Then cease, my song, till fair Aurora rise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillis_Wheatley

The Poetry Foundation includes some of her work here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/phillis-wheatley

Phillis Wheatley is commemorated along with Abigail Adams and Lucy Stone in the Boston Women's Memorial: https://www.boston.gov/departments/womens-advancement/boston-womens-memorial

#blackhistorymonth #BlackLivesMatter #WorkForChange

Celebrate Black History 2021 - Gwendolyn Brooks

by Dick Mac

Gwendolyn Brooks was born in Topeka, Kansas, on June 7, 1917, and died of cancer on December 3, 2000, in Chicago, Illinois. She was 83.

Brooks was a poet whose first published piece Eventide was printed when she was 13-years-old, and in high school she became a regular contributor to The Chicago Defender newspaper. She is one of the most respected and revered poets of the last century.

In November, 1944, two of her poems, which she submitted unsolicited, were published in Poetry magazine. Unsolicited poems were historically not published by Poetry.

In 1950, she became the first African-American author to win a Pulitzer Prize, for her book Annie Allen.

In the 1960s, Brooks met political activists and artists working to further black cultural nationalism. Although left-leaning throughout her life, pursuing a black nationalist posture helped distance her from the McCarthyism that plagued so many American intellectuals.  She taught creative writing to Chicago's Blackstone Rangers, who were known as a criminal gang. She remained a voice for progress throughout her life.

Brooks was appointed Poet Laureate of Illinois in 1968 and held that honor for 32 years, until her death in 2000. In 1976, she became the first African-American woman inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1988, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame

She was named the Poet Laureate Consultant to the Library of Congress for the 1985–86 term.

Brooks taught at the University of Chicago, Columbia College Chicago, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago State University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Elmhurst College, Columbia University, and the City College of New York.

Faced with racial bias, bigotry and discrimination throughout her life, Gwendolyn Brooks never wavered from the love of her craft and her desire to make an impact on the world around her. She is an American hero.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwendolyn_Brooks

See, Library of Congress entry: https://www.loc.gov/item/n50041281/gwendolyn-brooks

Watch Brooks read her poem "We Real Cool": https://youtu.be/3GnlLalReRU

#blackhistorymonth #BlackLivesMatter #WorkForChange

Nevertheless (an excerpt)

The weak overcomes its menace, the strong over comes itself. What is there like fortitude!


 - Excerpted from Nevertheless, by Marianne Moore (1944)

A Poem on the Annihilation of Ernie Terrell

by Dick Mac

Marianne Moore and Muhammad Ali
Toot Shor's restaurant 1966

A Poem on the Annihilation of Ernie Terrell
     by Marianne Moore and Muhammad Ali, 1966

After we defeat Ernie Terrell
He will get nothing, nothing but hell,
Terrell was big and ugly and tall
But when he fights me he is sure to fall.
If he criticize this poem by me and Miss Moore
To prove he is not the champ she will stop him in four,
He is claiming to be the real heavyweight champ
But when the fight starts he will look like a tramp
He has been talking too much about me and making me sore
After I am through with him he will not be able to challenge Mrs. Moore.


May they both rest in peace.

Muhammad Ali (1942 - 2016)
Marianne Moore (1887 - 1972)

"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," by Gil Scott-Heron

I have written about Gil Scott-Heron's legal troubles and about a show I saw him do in London.

I think Scott-Heron's influence on American music in the 1970s is directly responsible for the success of rap music. And I mean the vital rap movement of the 1970s and 1980s, not the so-called hip-hop scene we know today that exists only for marketing purposes. There is no 'soul' in hip-hop, there is only cash, guns and bad jewelry. Rap, on the other hand, had soul. It was vital, it was alive. And if Gil Scott-Heron hadn't made his records, I truly believe that rap never could have be born.

Official promo for Gil Scott Heron's collected lyrics and poems, Now and Then, published by Canongate Books. Produced by Peter Collingridge and directed by Julian House (Intro) in 2001:


Or see it at youtube.com.




Dick Mac Recommends:

Now & Then
Gil Scott-Heron