Phillis Wheatley: To the University

In 1770s Boston, Phillis Wheatley was at the same time enslaved and an international celebrity: a writer who mastered the most persuasive rhetoric of the day to publish enduring arguments about freedom.

Presidential inaugural poets Amanda Gorman and Richard Blanco, writer Clint Smith, and scholars Glenda Carpio and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., join host Elisa New to read two of Wheatley’s poems.

In this episode, we welcome guests:

Richard Blanco, Poet
Paula Byrne, Author
Glenda Carpio, Harvard University professor
Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Historian
Amanda Gorman, Poet
Suzannah Omonuk, Poet
Clint Smith, Poet