Phillis Wheatley - Boston, MA
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NorStar
N 42° 21.032 W 071° 04.998
19T E 328412 N 4690798
This statue, part of a composition dedicated to three Boston women, is for Phillis Wheatley, who was the first African-American poet and first African-American woman to have published works.
Waymark Code: WMDAPX
Location: Massachusetts, United States
Date Posted: 12/15/2011
Views: 5
In Boston, along the Commonwealth Avenue Mall (park), between the lanes of Commonwealth Avenue and between Gloucester and Fairfield Streets, is a composition of three statues dedicated to three Boston women in history. One of these is of Phillis Wheatley, who is claimed to be the first African-American poet and the first African-American woman to have published works.
In this statue, Phillis is sitting on top of the pedestal, and leaning on the block in a thoughtful position. She, too, is in a dress and bonnet. Text in the stone about her has the following:
"Phillis Wheatley
ca 1753 - 1784
Born in West Africa and sold as a slave from the ship Phillis in colonial Boston she was a literary prodigy whose 1773 volume, "Poems on Various Subjects Religious and Moral" was the first book published by an African Writer in America."
A quote on the block is as follows:
"Imagination: Who can sing thy force?
Or who describe the sweetness of thy course?
Soaring through air to find the bright abode
Th' empyreal palace of the thund'ring God
We on thy pinions can surpass the wind
And leave the rolling universe behind
From star to star the mental optics rove,
Measure the skies and range the realms above
There in one view we grasp the mighty whole
Or with new world amaze th'unbounded soul
Imagination"
There is also text on the top of the block, as if she had just written it:
"In every human breast God has implanted a Principle
which we call love of freedom
It is impatient of oppression
and pants for deliverance
The same principle lives in us.
Letter to the Reverend Samson Occom February 11, 1774"
Her published poems were noted by many, including George Washington. Partly because of her success and partly from the death of her master, she was emancipated. She married, but soon after her husband was put into debt prison, she became ill and died in 1784. This statue was made in 2003.
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