Vanished in the Unknown Shade

Though little known today, Sidney Lanier (1842-81) was considered by some critics the leading writer of the post-Civil War New South, the greatest Southern writer after Edgar Allan Poe, and "a man of heroic and exquisite character." Lanier was a Georgian, but he spent two years after the war in Montgomery, Alabama, trying to restore his health after contracting tuberculosis while a prisoner of war. He also was principal of a school in nearby Prattville. In the 1930s, an elegant public high school was built in Montgomery and named in Lanier's honor. Author Helen Blackshear taught literature to Montgomery high school students for three decades, and her brief account of Lanier's life, especially his Montgomery period, was motivated partly from the knowledge that few today remember Lanier or his work. Author Helen Friedman Blackshear (1911-2003) was Alabama's eighth poet laureate. A native of Tuscaloosa, she lived in Montgomery for almost seventy years. She had three daughters, eight grandchildren, and fourteen great-grandchildren. A graduate of Agnes Scott College, she also earned an MA from the University of Alabama. She was the author of Mother Was a Rebel, Southern Smorgasbord, The Creek Captives, Alabama Album, Silver Songs, and From Peddlar to Philanthropist: The Friedman Story. She also edited These I Would Keep, an anthology of poems by Alabama's first through ninth poet laureates. She had been treasurer and vice-president of the Alabama Poetry Society and president of the Alabama Writers' Conclave. She was Poet of the Year in 1986 and received the Distinguished Service Award from the Conclave in 1987.