Welcome everyone to American Girls, the podcast. This is the

podcast where we're reliving the American Girl series book by book except here on

patron where we're doing kind of whatever we want that we think lives within the

world of this show. I'm Mary. I'm still

Allison. And welcome to our episode where we will be reading through an

excellent new book. Don't want to get the title wrong. The Age of Phyllis. Thank you, yes. Which is just come out. It's a very late

2020 book, right, Allison? That's correct.

It's by Honoray Phanon Jeffers.

Jefers.

I want to make sure it's pronounced correctly.

She's a professor at Oklahoma, and this is a really beautiful book. It's a book length poem and

exploration of the life of Phyllis Wheatley. This book made the long list for the National Book Award and will give you just a little bit more

information on the background. Phyllis Leatley was a fairly well known poet known to presidents and others like very important people in the

empire in the late 1700s but this book does something different and makes her more of a full flesh and blood person for us to understand.

So from the publisher, in the shadow of the American Revolution, a young African American woman named

Phyllis Wheatley published a book of poetry, poems

on various subjects, religious and moral 1773.

When Wheatley's book appeared, it 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 upon 15 years of archival research, the age of Phyllis by award-winning poet and

writer Honoré Fanon Jeffers imagines the life in times of Wheatley.

You know, it's very hard almost to categorize this book or to really, you know, the summary

...