Dear Sister: Phyllis Wheatley's Pleasures

“Dear Sister: Phillis Wheatley’s Pleasures” examines the extant, intermittent correspondence of two African and enslaved (at times) women, famed poet Phillis Wheatley of Boston and her friend, Obour Tanner of Newport, Rhode Island. Wheatley’s letters to Tanner—from 1772 to 1779—evidence the deep down pleasure that comes from the satisfaction of her desire to “shar[e] deeply any pursuit with another person,” to listen and to be heard, to love and be loved (Lorde 53). For Wheatley, these letters share a deep and abiding faith in a Christian God whose ability to love, create and author her life inspires this epistolary space of mutual language and exchange. When both women receive letters and presumably read them or have them read, each access—what Lorde calls—an “erotic” power upon which their friendship grows.