author
Nora May French
1881–1907
An early California poet with a vivid, lyrical voice, she moved through bohemian literary circles in Carmel and left behind work shaped by nature, longing, and emotional intensity. Her life was brief, but her poems helped secure her place as a memorable figure in turn-of-the-century American verse.
1 Audiobook
Poems
by Nora May French
About the author
Born in Aurora, New York, in 1881, she later moved with her family to Southern California and grew up amid changing fortunes. Reliable biographical sources describe her as an American poet and journalist, and also place her in the Carmel Arts and Crafts Club, the creative community that flourished in Carmel-by-the-Sea after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.
Her poetry was published in magazines during her lifetime, and a posthumous collection, Poems by Nora May French, helped preserve her reputation. Readers often remember her for the musical quality of her writing and for the way her work blends beauty, melancholy, and close attention to the natural world.
She died in Carmel, California, in 1907, at only twenty-six. Because her career was so short, her story is often told as one of striking promise, but the poems themselves are the best reason she is still read.