I had also read the passage where he said of Phillis Wheatley—widely understood to be the first published Black woman poet in the history of the United States—that “the compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism.” Jefferson believed that Black people, as a rule, were not capable of poetic expression. “Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry,” he wrote. “Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry. Love is the peculiar oestrum of the poet. Their love is ardent, but it kindles the senses only, not the imagination.”
