Watch This: ‘Earth, I Thank You’

I have a single link for you today, because that’s how much I hope you’ll click on it: Earth, I Thank You is a 38-minute documentary from The Garden Conservancy about the Lynchburg VA garden of Anne Spencer. Spencer was a Harlem Renaissance poet, who I admittedly was not familiar with before watching this film. She was not only an avid gardener — who created a whole beautiful world in her yard — but a poet whose work was heavily influenced by her life as a gardener. The garden was also visited (and performed in) by numerous Harlem Renaissance luminaries, as Spencer and her husband were frequent overnight hosts to people on musical or literary tours at a time when lodging for Black Americans was scarce to non-existent. And hers is the only preserved home and garden of an African-American poet in the nation.

The film is the story of her life and garden, of her role in the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights movement, and of the efforts of a local garden group in conjunction with The Garden Conservancy, who have done the years-long work of restoring and preserving what she created. It’s a powerful story, well worth your time, and I hope you get as much out of it as I did.