KELLY: A rewrite to the original poem, which reads give me your tired, your poor, ... But she writes the poem itself in response to a request from a friend who in 1883 approached her and said, ...

By the time she wrote The New Colossus, more than 50 of her poems had been published in mainstream periodicals and she had written a novel and a drama. But for the New York socialite, writer and ...

When she died, it looked like her poem might be little remembered. In its obituary for Lazarus, The New York Times neglected to reference or acknowledge the now-famous sonnet.

Having found herself as a poet, Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753-1784) discovered that she and her voice became appropriated by a white elite that quickly tired of her novelty. Image courtesy of the ...

GJELTEN: So, true, give me your tired, your poor was not a poem associated originally with the Statue of Liberty. But that became the message, one that endures to this day.