Reflections on "Phillis in Prison"

"Phillis in Prison" is a reflection on recent experiences in teaching African American literature in four MDOC facilities, over two semesters, in 2020; then connecting those students to an academic opportunity to present their work (reading and writing) on colonial poet Phillis Wheatley, and the work of contemporary poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers (The Age of Phillis, 2020) at the Society of Early Americanists (SEA) biennial conference, in March 2021. Student-inmate work was read by undergraduates in the Social Justice Program at Spelman College.