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Ina Coolbrith
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{{Short description|American poet laureate, writer, and librarian (1841–1928)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=February 2020}} [[File:Ina Coolbrith portrait with signature.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|alt=A fine charcoal portrait of Ina Coolbrith in her 30s or 40s, shown from the neck up, wearing a garment with a high, open collar made of lace, with hair curled and secured atop the head, looking slightly to the left. A fountain pen signature is below the portrait, reading "Ina Coolbrith", the letter "c" writ large to sweep underneath the next five letters. |Ina Coolbrith in the 1880s]] <!-- PLEASE DO NOT add an infobox to this article. They are not required or necessary. If you have questions or concerns about this, please voice them on the talk page.--> '''Ina Donna Coolbrith''' (born '''Josephine Donna Smith'''; March 10, 1841 – February 29, 1928) was an American poet, writer, librarian, and a prominent figure in the [[San Francisco Bay Area]] literary community. Called the "Sweet Singer of California",<ref name=CurrentOpinion1900>{{cite journal |date=April 1900 |title=American Poets of To-Day: Ina Coolbrith |journal=Current Opinion |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=16–17 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VC0iAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA16|last1=Wheeler |first1=Edward Jewitt |last2=Crane |first2=Frank }}</ref> she was the first [[California Poet Laureate]] and the first [[poet laureate]] of any [[U.S. state|American state]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Western Literature Association |title=A Literary history of the American West |editor=J. Golden Taylor |publisher=TCU Press |year=1987 |page=[https://archive.org/details/literaryhistoryo00west/page/181 181] |isbn=978-0-87565-021-0 |url=https://archive.org/details/literaryhistoryo00west|url-access=registration }}</ref> Coolbrith, born the niece of [[the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints]] founder [[Joseph Smith]], left the Mormon community as a child to enter her teens in [[Los Angeles, California]], where she began to publish poetry. She terminated a youthful failed marriage to make her home in [[San Francisco]], and met writers [[Bret Harte]] and [[Charles Warren Stoddard]] with whom she formed the "Golden Gate Trinity" closely associated with the literary journal ''[[Overland Monthly]]''. Her poetry received positive notice from critics and established poets such as [[Mark Twain]], [[Ambrose Bierce]] and [[Alfred Lord Tennyson]]. She held literary [[Salon (gathering)|salons]] at her home in Russian Hill<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature|last=Tarnoff|first=Benjamin|publisher=Penguin Books|year=2014|isbn=9781594204739}}</ref>—in this way she introduced new writers to publishers. Coolbrith befriended the poet [[Joaquin Miller]] and helped him gain global fame. While Miller toured Europe and lived out their mutual dream of visiting [[George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron|Lord Byron's]] tomb, Coolbrith cared for his [[Wintu]] daughter and members of her own family. As a result, she came to reside in [[Oakland, California|Oakland]] and accepted the position of city librarian. Her poetry suffered as a result of her long work hours, but she mentored a generation of young readers including [[Jack London]] and [[Isadora Duncan]]. After she served for 19 years, Oakland's library patrons called for reorganization, and Coolbrith was fired. She moved back to San Francisco and was invited by members of the [[Bohemian Club]] to be their librarian.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ina-Donna-Coolbrith|title=Ina Donna Coolbrith {{!}} American poet|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica|access-date=August 21, 2017|language=en}}</ref> Coolbrith began to write a history of California literature, including much autobiographical material, but the fire following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake]] consumed her work. Author [[Gertrude Atherton]] and Coolbrith's Bohemian Club friends helped set her up again in a new house, and she resumed writing and holding literary salons. She traveled by train to [[New York City]] several times and, with fewer worldly cares, greatly increased her poetry output. On June 30, 1915, Coolbrith was named California's poet laureate, and she continued to write poetry for eight more years. Her style was more than the usual melancholic or uplifting themes expected of women—she included a wide variety of subjects in her poems, which were noted as being "singularly sympathetic" and "palpably spontaneous".<ref name=Moulton1889/> Her sensuous descriptions of natural scenes advanced the art of [[Victorian literature|Victorian poetry]] to incorporate greater accuracy without trite sentiment, foreshadowing the [[Imagist]] school and the work of [[Robert Frost]].<ref name=NewAnthology>Axelrod, 2003, p. 610</ref> California poet laureate [[Carol Muske-Dukes]] wrote of Coolbrith's poems that, though they "were steeped in a high tea lavender style", influenced by a British stateliness, "California remained her inspiration."<ref name="Muske-Dukes 2008">{{cite news|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2008-dec-12-et-muske-dukes12-story.html |title=Single laurel, common voice |last=Muske-Dukes |first=Carol |author-link=Carol Muske-Dukes |date=December 12, 2008 |work=Los Angeles Times |access-date=March 20, 2010}}</ref>
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