Louisiana Poet Laureate Pinkie Gordon Lane dies
Posted: Dec 3, 2008 06:56 PM
Updated: Dec 4, 2008 09:01 AM
by WAFB.com, Louisiana's News 5 Channel

BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) – Southern University's nationally-honored poet and Louisiana Poet Laureate Pinkie Gordon Lane died early Wednesday. Funeral arrangements are incomplete. Pinkie Gordon Lane was 85.

Lane was chair of the Department of English at Southern from 1974–1986. She was published in a variety of journals and was recognized as one of the 58 outstanding women for inclusion in the Women's Pavilion of the World Exposition held in New Orleans in 1984.

From 1989–1992, she served as the first African-American Poet Laureate of Louisiana. The Philadelphia, PA native graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1949 from Spelman College with a degree in English and art.

She received a Master's Degree from Atlanta University (now Clark-Atlanta) in 1956, and in 1967, she became the first African-American to receive a doctorate from LSU. She worked at the now-defunct Leland College in the English department before moving to Southern in 1959, where she taught for 28 years.

She authored eight books, including four volumes of poetry. She has received numerous honors throughout her career, including: induction into the Louisiana Black History Hall of Fame; named Distinguished Professor at the University of Northern Iowa; and given the National Council of Teachers of English Image Award.

Her poem, "Lyric: I am Looking at Music," from one of her four volumes of poetry, Girl at the Window, was read aloud by actress Nia Long in the 1997 motion picture, Love Jones.