NAACP Image Award Winner for Outstanding Literary Work for Poetry
2020 National Book Award for Poetry, Longlist
2020 LA Times Book Award Finalist

In 1773, a young, African American woman named Phillis Wheatley Peters published a book of poetry that challenged Western prejudices about African and female intellectual capabilities. Based on fifteen years of archival research, The Age of Phillis, by award-winning writer Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, imagines the life and times of Wheatley: her childhood in the Gambia, West Africa, her life with her white American owners, her friendship with Obour Tanner, and her marriage to the enigmatic John Peters. Woven throughout are poems about Wheatley's "age"—the era that encompassed political, philosophical, and religious upheaval, as well as the transatlantic slave trade. For the first time in verse, Wheatley's relationship to black people and their individual "mercies" is foregrounded, and here we see her as not simply a racial or literary symbol, but a human being who lived and loved while making her indelible mark on history.

mothering #1
Yaay, Someplace in the Gambia, c. 1753

after
the after-birth
is delivered
the mother stops
holding her breath
the mid-wife gives
what came before
her just-washed pain
her insanity pain
an undeserved pain
a God-given pain
oh oh oh pain
drum-talking pain
witnessing pain
Allah
a mother offers
You this gift
prays You find
it acceptable
her living pain
her creature pain
her pretty-little-baby
pain

Acknowledgments • Prolouge: Mother/Muse • "An Issue of Mercy #1" • Book: Before • "mothering #1" • "Fathering #1" • "Dafa Rafet" • "First-Time Prayer" • "Before the Taking of Goonay" • "Baay's Moan with Chorus" • "Entreaty: Yaay" • "An Issue of Mercy #2" • Muse: Vessel • "Isabell" • Book: Journey • "Point of No Return" • "The Transatlantic Progress of Sugar in the Eighteenth Century" • "Illustration of "Stowage of the British Slave Ship 'Brookes' Under the Regulated Slave Trade Act of 1788" • "According to the Testimony to the Grand Jury of Newport, Rhode Island by the Sailor John Cranston, After Throwing a Negro Woman (Referred to as Wench) into the Sea, James D'Wolfe, the Captain of the Slave Ship Polly, Mourned the Loss of the Good Chair to Which He Had Strapped His Victim" • List: Water • "slave mutiny aboar the jolly bachelor" • Blues: Odysseus • Muse: Memory • "The Lady Mneme" • Book: After • "Still Life with God #1" • "Mothering #2" • "Fathering #2" • "Lost Letter #1: Phillis Wheatley, Boston, to Susannah Wheatley, Boston Desk of Mary Wheatley, Where She Might Have Taught the Child Phillis to Read" • "Phillis Wheatley Tends to the Child Phillis in Her Asthmatic Suffering" • Muse: Embodiment • "The Definitions of Hagar Blackmore" • Book: Awakening • "The Reverend George Whitefield, Prominent Minister of What Will Be Known as the First Great Awakening, Accepts a Gift of Slaves in the Colony of Georgia" • "the mistress attempts to instruct her slave in writing a poem" • "Susannah and Phillis Wheatley Arrive at the Home of Ruth Barrell Andrews for a Discussion and Recitation of Poems" • "Lost Letter #4: "Phillis Wheatley, Boston, to Mary Wheatley Lathrop, Boston Phillis Wheatley is Baptized at Old South Church" • "Lost Letter#5: Phillis Wheatley, Boston, to Obour Tanner, Newport" • "Lost Letter# 6: Samson Occom, Mohegan, to Samson Wheatley, Boston" • "Lost Letter #7: Susannah Wheatley, Boston, to Samson Occom, Mohegan" • "Lost Letter #8: Obour Tanner, Newport, to Phillis Wheatley, Boston" • "Christian Sermon Translated in Juba" • Muse: Affirmation • "The Replevin of Elizabeth Freeman" • Book: Enlightenment • "Blues: Offspring Follows Belly" • "The Reverend Cotton Mather's Enslaved Servant Onesimus, a Coromantee, Teaches His Master about Smallpox Inoculation, a Practice of His Tribe in His Former Homeland" • "The African-German Philosopher Anton Wilhelm Amo Returns to His Home in West Africa to Become a Sage and (Possibly) a Goldsmith" • "Petrus Camper Takes the Measure of the Skull of a Dead Negro for the Purposes of Scientific Discovery" • "the beautiful and the sublime" • "Three Cases Decided by William Murray, First Earl of Mansfield and Chief Justice of the King's Bench" • "Portrait of Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay, Free Mulatto, and Her White Cousin, the Lady Elizabeth Murray, Both Great-Nieces of William Murray, Lord Mansfield" • "Found Poem: Racism" • "Lost Letter #9: Olaudah Equiano, London to Queen-Consort Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Windsor Castle" • Muse: Covening • "Chorus of the Mothers-Griotte" • Book: Astral • "Thomas Woolridge Demands that Phillis Wheatley Instantly Compose a Poem in Honor of His Friend, the Right Honorable Earl of Dartmouth" • "Lost Letter #10: Phillis Wheatley, Boston, to Obour Tannerm Newport" • "How Phillis Wheatley Might Have Obtained the Approval of Eighteen Prominent Men of Boston to Publish Her Book of Poetry" • "Found Poem: Attestation" • "Bon Voyage" • "Phillis Wheatley in London Town" • "A Mungo Macaroni, or, Illustration of a Well-Dressed Black Englishman" • "Lost letter #11: Mary Wheatley Lathrop, Boston, to Phillis Wheatley, London" • "Lost Letter #12: Phillis Wheatley, London, to Obour Tanner, Newport" • "Lost Letter #13: Phillis Wheatley, London, to Susanna Wheatley, Boston" • "Lost Letter #14: Nathaniel Wheatley, London, to Susannah Wheatley, Boston" • Muse: Plenty • "The Journey of Ona Judge, Enslaved Servant of Martha, Wife of President George Washington" • Book: Love • "Portrait of the Female Negro Artist as a Free African Woman" • "Lost Letter #15: John Peters, Boston, to Phillis Wheatley, Boston" • "Lost Letter #16: Phillis Wheatley, Boston, to John Peters, Boston" • "Lost Letter #17: Susannah Wheatley, Boston, to Phillis Wheatley" • "Lost Letter #18: John Thornton, London, to Phillis Wheatley, Boston" • "Lost Letter #19: Phillis Wheatley, Boston, to John Peters, Boston" • "Lost Letter #20: John Thornton, London, to Phillis Wheatley, Boston" • "The Poet Jupiter Hammon rejects the Need for the Revolutionary War" • Book: Revolution • "(Original) Black Lives Matter" • " Blues: Harpsichord, or, the Boston Massacre" • "Felix (of Unknown Last Name) Writes to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in Boston, Asking for the Freedom of All Slaves" • "Lemuel Haynes, Son of an Englishwoman and an African, Future Minister, and Former Indentured Servitude, Joins the Minutemen" • "Fragment #1 of a First Letter Draft: Abigail Adams, Boston, to John Adams, Philadelphia" • "Salem Poor Fights at the Battle of Bunker Hill" • " Fragment #2 of a First Letter Draft: Phillis Wheatley, Providence, to George Washington" • "Lord Dunmore Decides to Offer Freedom to Slaves To Fight on the Loyalist Side in the Rebellion Against His Majesty, King George III" • "General George Washington Reads a Poem and Letter He Received from Phillis Wheatley" • "General George Washington Allows the Enlistment of Free (though Not Enslaved) Negros in the Continental Army" • "Smallpox Decimates the Ranks of Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Loyalist Regiment, Camped on Land and Sea by the Rebellious Colony of Virginia" • "An Issue of Mercy #3" • "Harry Washington, a Negro Runaway of General George Washington, Reports to Sir Guy Carleton, Commander-in-Chief of the Loyalist Forces and Recorder of the Book of Negros" • "The Death of Former President George Washington" • "black sortue: a redoublé, a remix" • Muse: Blessing/Curse • "For the First of Several Times, Belinda Sutton, Former Slave of the House of Isaac Royall, Petitions the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for a Pension in her Old Age" • Book: Liberty • "Prince Hall Speaks of Holy Secrets" • " Lost Letter #21: John Peters, Boston, to Phillis Wheatley, Boston" • "Lost Letter #22: Phillis Wheatley, Boston, to Obour Tanner, Newport" • "Still Life with God #2" • "Lost Letter #23: Obour Tanner, Newport, to Phillis Wheatley, Boston" • "After Living Together for Several Months, Phillis Wheatley and Her Betrothed John Peters Finally Marry" • "Phillis Peters Prepares a Proposal to Publish Another Book of Poetry" • "Lost Letter #24: Obour Tanner, Newport to Phillis Peters, Boston" • "Lost Letter #25: From Phillis Peters, Boston, to Obour Tanner in Newport" • "Lost Letter #26: Phillis Peters, Boston, to Hohn Peters, Boston-Gaol" • "Lost Letter #27: John Peters, Boston-Gaol, to Phillis Peters, Boston" • "Found Poem: Intergration" • Epilogue: Mother {Muse} Daughter • "Homegoing, or, the Crossing Over of Goonay, Lately Known as Phillis Wheatley Peters" • Acknowledgemnts and Dedications • Selected Bibliography

In the shadow of the American Revolution, a young, African American woman named Phillis Wheatley published a book of poetry, Poems on various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773). When Wheatley's book appeared, her words would challenge Western prejudices about African and female intellectual capabilities. Her words would astound many and irritate others, but one thing was clear: this young woman was extraordinary. Based on fifteen years of archival research, The Age of Phillis, by award-winning writer Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, imagines the life and times of Wheatley: her childhood with her parents in the Gambia, West Africa, her life with her white American owners, her friendship with Obour Tanner, her marriage to the enigmatic John Peters, and her untimely death at the age of about thirty-three.

Woven throughout are poems about Wheatley's "age"—the era that encompassed political, philosophical, and religious upheaval, as well as the transatlantic slave trade. For the first time in verse, Wheatley's relationship to black people and their individual "mercies" is foregrounded, and here we see her as not simply a racial or literary symbol, but a human being who lived and loved while making her indelible mark on history.