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An Ironic Twist The intent of the poets who wrote what we today call slave poetry is as varied as the content they address. Some of the poems transform slavery from a distant incident to a personal trial through a story telling approach while others teach the atrocities of slavery to the masses by simply laying out the facts in a colder manner thereby emphasizing those atrocities. Irony is another way some authors of slave poetry illustrate their points to their audience. Irony is a significant device used by the poets in the slavery poems “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” “The Dying Fugitive,” and “Middle Passage.” “On Being Brought from Africa to America” is a piece from the celebrated African poetess Phillis Wheatley. Wheatley is known for writing poetry with a dominant influence of religious and moral themes. In this poem she uses a highly intelligent and scathing verbal irony. Although it is written in a deceptively mild manner one can catch the hints of Wheatley’s sarcasm especially in the last lines of the poem where she says of the majority of whites of that time “Some view our sable race with scornful eye,/’Their colour is a diabolic die.’/Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,/