Pinkie Gordan Lane

Pinkie Gordan Lane was a poet, editor, and teacher. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Lane worked in a sewing factory for five years before receiving a four-year scholarship to attend Spelman College in Atlanta, where she earned her BA in English and Art. Lane went on to earn an MA in English from Atlanta University in 1956, and in 1967, Lane became the first African America woman to earn a PhD from Louisiana State University, where she served as director of the English department from 1974 to 1986.

Initially interested in fiction, Lane was introduced to poetry in 1960, when she first encountered the works of Gwendolyn Brooks. After becoming a self-declared “self-taught poet,” Lane published her first book, Wind Thoughts, in 1972. Lane’s second book, Mystic Female (1978), received much critical acclaim and was later nominated by Gwendolyn Brooks for the Pulitzer Prize. Writing for Callaloo, Dorothy W. Newman wrote of Lane’s growth, saying the poet “goes inward and emerges universal in her second volume of poetry.”

In addition to its universal tenor, Lane’s writing has been characterized by its lush imagery. Interviewing Lane for Perihelion, C.K. Tower commented that her imagery “[offers] the reader layer upon layer of palpable language.”

In 1989, Lane was appointed the first African American Poet Laurate of Louisiana. After publishing five books in her lifetime, including her final book, Elegy for Etheridge (2000), Lane died in 2008.