Phyllis wheatley

Phillis Wheatley by Unknown Say what is sleep? and dreams how passing strange! When action ceases, and ideas range Licentious and unbounded o'er the plains, Where Fancy's queen in giddy triumph reigns. Hear in soft strains the dreaming lover sigh To a kind fair, or rave in jealousy; On pleasure now, and now on vengeance bent, The lab'ring passions struggle for a vent. What pow'r, O man! thy reason then restores, So long suspended in nocturnal hours? What secret hand returns the mental train…

Phillis Wheatley frontispiece

December 21, 1767: Phillis Wheatley, fourteen, becomes the first published African American poet.

Poem by Phyllis Wheatley

Collection of poems by Phillis Wheatley

Phyllis Wheatley - Boston, Massachusetts

Phillis Wheatley (ca. 1753-1784), an eighteenth-century African-American woman who was a slave and a poet, was the first black American to be published. She is also credited with originating the genres of African-American poetry and African-American women’s literature. Due to the fact that no one in America was willing to print her works, her first writings were actually published in London, England.