"Pulling in the natural environment": an interview with Pinkie Gordon Lane

African American Review, Spring-Summer, 2005 by John Lowe

I first met Pinkie Gordon Lane when I accepted a position in the English department of Louisiana State University in 1986. I had heard her give a spectacular reading, however, at the Modern Language Association some years back, so I instantly recognized her when we crossed paths in Baton Rouge. I had already learned that she was somewhat legendary in our department, as she was the first African American woman to receive the PhD in English at LSU. Many of her poems have been set to music by the distinguished composer and LSU Professor of Music, Dinos Constanides, and their joint performances remain memorable for many Baton Rougeans. There has always been a poetic element in Constanides's music, and many critics have praised the lyrical aspect of Pinkie's poems. As a guest in Pinkie's home, I've also had a chance to admire her many paintings, testimony to the remarkable visual aspect also on display in her poems. Pinkie Gordon Lane has been a radiant force in different guises. As Professor and longtime Chair in the English department of Southern University, she trained several generations of poets and students. When she was named Poet Laureate of Louisiana, she embarked on an ambitious program of appearances and performances aimed at spreading appreciation for our state's impressive poetic tradition. She has supported and encouraged hundreds of local talents, and has been generous in her sponsorship of many cultural events that have strengthened our community.

The following interview was conducted at Pinkie Gordon Lane's home in North Baton Rouge. (1) Our conversation began with Pinkie's memories of the distinguished scholar and writer Margaret Walker, who had just died. Pinkie had been particularly struck by Walker's biography of Richard Wright, Daemonic Genius.

PGL: It's been a long time since I read that book. Margaret says she helped him to write Black Boy. At some point they became alienated--he left her, apparently. And she never got over that rejection. She had a hard time publishing her biography of him, because his wife, Ellen Wright, tried to keep it from being published. There are some stories--off the record--that she [Walker] was climbing in the window where Wright was ... these are stories that circulate among writers! His rejection hurt her until the day she died. I went to one of the parties she had after a conference in Jackson. She had after-conferences parties at her house, and she was a great cook. Her husband was sitting in the corner, and I was sitting on the steps with a plate of food in my lap. I was much younger then ... he said, "Who is that beautiful woman sitting over on the steps?" And Margaret Danner, who had known Margaret all her life said, "He shouldn't have said that, because she will hate you till the day she dies!" Margaret Danner was a very warm, supportive person, so far as I was concerned.

I remember that I went to an event in Jackson, and there were just a few writers there, Alvin Aubert and others--and she [Margaret Walker] had probably never heard who I was--my first book, Wind Thoughts, had just come out. She went around introducing everyone and when she got to me she drew a blank: "and this is Pinkie--she's an old shoe!" So I went up to her afterwards and I said, "Margaret, you haven't read my work." And she said, "Well, there are some poets you like and some you don't." I never forgot that remark. But I think she was just trying to get out of a tight spot.

After that I got to know her much better. We were at a couple of conferences together. Once she was sitting in the hall by herself, and she told me, "You know, my husband is sick." I had the feeling that she wanted some comforting words.

JL: What do you think her value has been and will be for African American writers?

PGL: She is practically worshiped as an icon. Her poetry--her early work--and especially one poem that made her famous, "For My People"--that is probably the most famous poem ever penned by a black person. Maryemma Graham--she writes a lot about Margaret. She found some videos of Margaret's early work. She had written a lot of poems like "For My People," which won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. She very much deserved that. She was a precursor of the poets of the late 1950s--the poets of the Cultural Revolution--but she was talking then about black identity in the 1940s. Her later books were published by Broadside Press, Dudley Randall's publishing company.

JL: Tell me about this new book, Elegy for Etheridge. One of the things I've noticed in going over your work yet again, is that there's a strongly elegiac thematic in it from the very beginning--for instance, you have very early in Wind Thoughts the elegy "Miriam"; you have "Finis" there, which is for your husband; you have an elegy for Lois Adrian Miller.

PGL: And not only that, elegiac in tone, John--in this new book I have a group of poems called "Epitaph for the Blues," which was published first in Poems for an Outcast. And they are elegiac. They're love poems, but they're about the pain.