author
Ina D. (Ina Donna) Coolbrith
1841–1928
A central figure in early California letters, she helped shape the literary life of the Bay Area as both a poet and a librarian. Best remembered as California’s first poet laureate, she wrote with warmth about nature, memory, and the American West.
0 Audiobooks
About the author
Born Josephine Donna Smith in Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1841, Ina Donna Coolbrith later made her life in California and became one of the best-known literary voices of the early West. She was a poet, writer, and librarian whose work and friendships placed her at the heart of San Francisco Bay Area culture.
Coolbrith served as Oakland’s first public librarian and became an important presence in the region’s literary community. Her poems appeared in several collections, and she was often associated with graceful, lyrical writing about landscape, feeling, and everyday beauty.
In 1915, she was named California’s first poet laureate—the first person to hold that title in any U.S. state. Though the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed her home and many of her papers, her reputation endured, and she is still remembered as a pioneering literary figure in California history.