Winners of Poetry Contest
NOCCA Students Win
Pinkie Gordon Lane Poetry Contest
First, Second, Third, Fourth & Fifth Place
NOCCA, Louisiana’s high school for arts students, is proud to share the news of their student’s success in the recent Pinkie Gordon Lane Poetry Contest coordinated by Southern University.
Students recognized in the event include first through fifth place:
Kyndal Chaney | First Place
Isabel Magnotta | Second Place
Nick Lavender | Third Place
Oliver O’Dwyer | Fourth Place
Joe McClinton | Fifth Place
Every year in April, to celebrate National Poetry Month, Southern University hosts a poetry contest in the honor of Pinkie Gordon Lane. Lane was an African American woman who was a poet, author, editor, and teacher. She is also the first African American woman to receive a Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD) from Louisiana State University in the year of 1967. She was also the first African-American woman to be named as Louisiana’s Poet Laureate from 1989 to 1993. She began her teaching career in 1957 at Leland College in Baker, Louisiana but she eventually left Leland to teach English and serve as chair of the English department at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Staying there for twenty-seven years, she retired in 1986. The contest was named after Lane because she paved the way for many black poets in Louisiana, to celebrate the accomplishments she has made throughout her lifetime and her contributions to Southern University.