Annie Bannister

Annie Bannister met Edward Spencer when they were both students at the Virginia Theological Seminary in Lynchburg. They married in 1901 and Annie took a job as a librarian. The Spencers had three children, their son Chauncy becoming a noted aviation pioneer.

While continuing to live and work in Lynchburg, Annie became deeply involved in the Harlem Renaissance. After she began to publish her poetry, an editor recommended that she use the more formal “Anne Spencer” as her pen name, and that is how she is remembered today.

Anne Spencer published 30 poems during her lifetime, and she became the first black woman and the first Virginian to be included in the Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. Her home in Lynchburg is now preserved as the Anne Spencer House and Garden Museum.

Today is the birthday of Anne Spencer, born on February 6, 1882.

Ah, how poets sing and die!

Make one song and Heaven takes it;

Have one heart and Beauty breaks it;

Chatterton, Shelley, Keats and I—

Ah, how poets sing and die!