In her article “The Difficult Miracle of Black Poetry in America”, June Jordan discusses Phillis Wheatley as one of the most famous African-American poets of the eighteenth century. Jordan focuses on portraying the aspects of the young Black poet’s life while naming Wheatley the “miracle” and explaining why the life of the Black poet can be associated with the idea of a “difficult miracle”.
At the beginning of the article, Jordan notes that it is a challenging task for a Black slave to become a poet in the United States. Thus, the author states, “A poet is African in Africa, or Irish in Ireland, or French on the left bank of Paris, or white in Wisconsin… A poet is somebody free. A poet is someone at home” (Jordan 162). However, it was not a path typical for an African slave in America, and Wheatley, as a poet, was a miracle in this context. In comparison with the other poets, who were living in their native countries and who were free, Wheatley was totally the opposite. Being a black slave, Wheatley was sold in America and educated by her white slave-owners. Jordan states that Wheatley was a miracle because she became the first Black poet and the second female poet whose works were published in the United States.
Phillis Wheatley published her first poem “To the University of Cambridge” at the age of fourteen. Jordan states that, in course of time, Wheatley’s poems became more mature and revealed the poet’s “intrinsic ardor” (Jordan 165). When she was eighteen or nineteen years old, Wheatley published her first book of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects Religious and Moral. In her article, Jordan notes that in spite of the poet’s age, her poems were always unique and personal. Jordan emphasizes that Wheatley, as “the first Black poet in America, had dared to redefine herself from house slave to, possibly, an angel of the Almighty” (Jordan 165). Jordan claims that Wheatley created herself as the unique poet with the great revolutionary potential in spite of all challenges typical for being a Black poet in the American society.
Continuing the discussion of Wheatley’s life events, Jordan focuses on the period when the poet was twenty-one years old. Suzannah Wheatley, the white ‘mother’ of the young girl, died. Wheatley seemed to lose her connection with whites, and she realized her nature of the Black poet in America. In spite of changes in the life and marriage, Wheatley continued writing poems and dreamed about publishing the poetry; but the poet died at the age of thirty-one. Having represented these facts, Jordan focuses on the fact that Wheatley was unique as a young poet, as a Black poet, and as a female poet.
At the end of the article, Jordan concentrates on differences of white and black poets. Thus, Jordan states, “as long as we, Black poets in America, remain the children of slavery, as long as we do not come of age and attempt, then to speak the truth of our difficult maturity in an alien place, then we will be beloved, and sheltered, and published” (Jordan 166). If white poets often do not talk about Black people or social problems, Black poets need to persist in order to overcome the barriers and become the “difficult miracle” in poetry.
Thus, in her article, June Jordan portrays the aspects of Phillis Wheatley’s life in terms of her role as a poet to influence other Black poets. Jordan notes that Black poets need to understand that they should persist in order to become the miracle in the American poetry.