In the autumn of 1773, a slender volume of poetry emerged from a London printing house that would forever alter the landscape of American literature. "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral" bore the name of its author on the title page: Phillis Wheatley, Negro Servant to Mr. John Wheatley of Boston. This seemingly simple attribution concealed a profound paradox that would define both the poet's life and her…
“That it was not the small-pox that brought me to America, but I was brought from Africa to America.”
Neighbourhood:
African American Poets, American Poets, Colonial American Poets, Devotional Poets, Political Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Spirituality, Wonder, Peace
Michael Bruce was born on 27 March 1746 at Kinnesswood, a small village in the parish of Portmoak, Kinross-shire, Scotland, on the eastern shore of Loch Leven. His name has long been associated with the image of the gifted rural poet, cut down before maturity and remembered through a body of work shadowed by disputed authorship. That image contains a real pathos, but it can also obscure the particular circumstances o…
Neighbourhood:
Love Poets, Nature Poets, Romantic Poets, Scottish Poets
Emotional landscape: Longing, Sorrow, Despair
