Anne Spencer
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“I go there to certainly rake leaves and things like that, but I go there because it’s such a peaceful place. I think about my grandmother doing this same thing. A peaceful place where she could think about cultivating plants and also think about the challenges that she as a woman, and she as a Black woman, was facing and to maybe work that out in her head, like writing a poem.”
DESCRIPTION OF WORK
Anne Spencer is widely known as an American poet of the Harlem Renaissance, civil rights activist, and avid gardener. Her garden in Lynchburg, Virginia became a gathering place for Black intellectuals and artists from around the country, who regarded it as a place for inspiration. Garden rooms structured by trellises shaped spaces within the garden to establish areas of creative respite. The work of the garden was closely tied to the work of her writing, demonstrating the significance of landscape in shaping a cultural movement.
Anne Spencer is widely known as an American poet of the Harlem Renaissance, civil rights activist, and avid gardener. Her garden in Lynchburg, Virginia became a gathering place for Black intellectuals and artists from around the country, who regarded it as a place for inspiration. Garden rooms structured by trellises shaped spaces within the garden to establish areas of creative respite. The work of the garden was closely tied to the work of her writing, demonstrating the significance of landscape in shaping a cultural movement.
BORN
1882
1882
DESCENT
American/ African American
DISCIPLINE
Poety, Teaching, Civil Rights Activist, Gardener