Located in Piedmont Park, the monument consists of a bust of Sidney Lanier, a notable poet from Georgia.

After graduating from Oglethorpe University in 1860, he served as a private in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.

Following the war, Lanier, an accomplished flutist, played for the Peabody Symphony Orchestra in Baltimore and published some of his most famous poems, such as "The Marshes of Glynn".

Lanier died at the ripe age of 39 due to tuberculosis he had contracted while he was a prisoner of war.

[2] Sue Harper Mims, the wife of Atlanta Mayor Livingston Mims, funded the monument's creation and erection,[3] having sold some of her jewels to raise the money.