author
Effie Waller Smith
1879–1960
An early 20th-century poet from eastern Kentucky, she wrote graceful, musical verse rooted in Appalachian landscapes and everyday life. Her work brought a distinctive Black Appalachian voice into print at a time when that was still far too rare.
1 Audiobook
Rosemary and Pansies
by Effie Waller Smith
About the author
Born in Pike County, Kentucky, on January 6, 1879, she was the daughter of formerly enslaved parents and grew up in the Chloe Creek community near Pikeville. She trained as a teacher at the Kentucky Normal School for Colored Persons, later Kentucky State University, and went on to teach in Pike County.
Her poetry appeared in newspapers and in Harper's Weekly, and she published three collections: Songs of the Month and Rhymes from the Cumberland in 1904, followed by Rosemary and Pansies in 1909. Her poems are often noted for their traditional style and for the way they capture both the beauty of the Cumberland region and the texture of daily life.
She died on January 2, 1960. Today, she is remembered as an important African American poet of Appalachia whose writing preserved a place, a voice, and a perspective that American literary history too often overlooked.