author
Ina D. (Ina Donna) Coolbrith
1841–1928
A central figure in early California letters, she helped shape the literary life of San Francisco and became the first poet laureate of California. Her poems are remembered for their lyric grace, while her life tied together frontier history, libraries, and the growth of Western American culture.
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About the author
Born Josephine Donna Smith in Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1841, she later took the name Ina Coolbrith and moved west with her family as a child during the Gold Rush era. In California she began publishing poetry young and gradually became part of the Bay Area's lively literary world.
She was known not only as a poet, but also as an important cultural presence in San Francisco. Coolbrith worked as a librarian in Oakland and was closely connected with major writers of her time, helping encourage a growing literary community in the American West.
A fire after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake destroyed her home along with many manuscripts and personal papers, yet her reputation endured. In 1915 she was named California's first poet laureate—the first state poet laureate in the United States—and she remained a celebrated figure until her death in Berkeley in 1928.