Open main menu
Home
Random
Recent changes
Special pages
Community portal
Preferences
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Incubator escapee wiki
Search
User menu
Talk
Dark mode
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Editing
Ina Coolbrith
(section)
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
==Poet== [[File:Ina Coolbrith about 1871.jpg|thumb|alt=A monochrome photograph portrait of a woman 29 or 30 years old, shown from the chest up, wearing a long necklace with dark beads atop a white blouse with an encircling collar made of lace, covered on the shoulders with a dark lace drape, with long, dark hair curled and secured behind the head with tresses down past the shoulder blades, the woman's body turned to the right but her head turned to the left to reveal a dangling earring.|Coolbrith in [[San Francisco]] at the age of 29 or 30]] Coolbrith soon met [[Bret Harte]] and Samuel Langhorne Clemens, writing as [[Mark Twain]], in San Francisco.<ref name=CATE>{{cite web |url=http://www.cateweb.org/CA_Authors/Coolbrith.html |title=Ina Coolbrith (1841β1928) and the California Frontier |last=Albert |first=Janice |work=California Authors |publisher=California Association of Teachers of English |access-date=February 20, 2010 |archive-date=March 4, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100304224321/http://www.cateweb.org/CA_Authors/Coolbrith.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> She published poems in [[The Californian (1860s newspaper)|''The Californian'']], a new literary newspaper formed in 1864 and edited by Harte and [[Charles Henry Webb]].<ref name=":0" /> In 1867, four of Coolbrith's poems appeared in [[The Galaxy (magazine)|''The Galaxy'']].<ref>Library of Congress, American Memory. Cornell University.<br />{{cite journal|last=Coolbrith|first=Ina|journal=The Galaxy|volume=3|issue=4|date=February 1867|title=Who Knoweth?|url=http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpcoop/moahtml/title/lists/gala_V3I4.html}}<br />{{cite journal|last=Coolbrith|first=Ina|journal=The Galaxy|volume=3|issue=7|date=April 1867|title=At Peace|url=http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpcoop/moahtml/title/lists/gala_V3I7.html}}<br />{{cite journal|last=Coolbrith|first=Ina|journal=The Galaxy|volume=4|issue=2|date=June 1867|title=Among The Daisies|url=http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpcoop/moahtml/title/lists/gala_V4I2.html}}<br />{{cite journal|last=Coolbrith|first=Ina|journal=The Galaxy|volume=4|issue=3|date=July 1867|title=Wearisome|url=http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpcoop/moahtml/title/lists/gala_V4I3.html}}</ref> In July 1868, Coolbrith supplied a poem, "Longing", for the first issue of the ''[[Overland Monthly]]'', and served unofficially as co-editor with Harte in selecting poems, articles and stories for the periodical. She became a friend of actress and poet [[Adah Menken]],<ref name=NewAnthology/> adding to Menken's credibility as an intellectual, but was unable to impress Harte of Menken's worth.<ref>{{cite book|last=Sentilles |first=RenΓ©e M. |title=Performing Menken: Adah Isaacs Menken and the birth of American celebrity |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2003 |pages=177, 189 |isbn=978-0-521-82070-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NmGBqAEC2C8C&pg=PA177}}</ref> Coolbrith also worked as a schoolteacher for extra income. For a decade, Coolbrith supplied one poem for each new issue of the ''Overland Monthly''.<ref name=George>{{cite web|url=http://www.coolpoetry.org/inacoolbrithslostcity.html |title=Ina Coolbrith's Lost City of Love and Desire |last=George |first=Aleta |publisher=The Ina Coolbrith Circle |access-date=February 20, 2010 |location=Oakland, California}}</ref> After the 1866 publication of four of her poems in an anthology edited by Harte, Coolbrith's "The Mother's Grief" was positively reviewed in ''[[The New York Times]]''.<ref>Egli, 1997, p. xix.</ref> Another poem, "When the Grass Shall Cover Me", appeared unattributed in an anthology of [[John Greenleaf Whittier]]'s favorite works by other poets, entitled ''Songs of Three Centuries'' (1875); Coolbrith's poem was judged the best of that group.<ref name=Examiner1892/> In 1867, recently widowed [[Josephine Clifford McCracken|Josephine Clifford]] arrived at the ''Overland Monthly'' to take a position as secretary. She formed a lifetime friendship with Coolbrith.<ref>Egli, 1997, p. 111.</ref> Coolbrith's literary work connected her with poet [[Alfred Lord Tennyson]] and naturalist [[John Muir]], as well as [[Charles Warren Stoddard]] who also helped Harte edit the ''Overland Monthly''. As editors and arbiters of literary taste, Harte, Stoddard and Coolbrith were known as the "Golden Gate Trinity".<ref name=Hicks228>{{cite book|last=Hicks |first=Jack |title=The Literature of California: Native American beginnings to 1945 |publisher=University of California Press |year=2000 |page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780520215245/page/228 228] |isbn=978-0-520-21524-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780520215245|url-access=registration }}</ref> Stoddard once said that Coolbrith never had any of her literary submissions returned from a publisher.<ref name=Examiner1892>{{cite news |url=https://archive.org/details/aperfectdaypoem00coolrich |title=A Poet's Literary Friends, Their Answers to the Question, 'What Has Ina Coolbrith Done?' |work=San Francisco Examiner |date=November 27, 1892}} Newspaper clipping found inside ''A Perfect Day, and Other Poems'', by Ina D. Coolbrith. 1881.</ref> Coolbrith met writer and critic [[Ambrose Bierce]] in 1869, and by 1871 when he was courting Mary Ellen Day, Bierce organized friendly card games between himself, Day, Coolbrith and Stoddard. Bierce felt that Coolbrith's best poems were "California", the commencement ode she wrote for the [[University of California, Berkeley|University of California]] in 1871, and "Beside the Dead", written in 1875.<ref name=Gale>{{cite book |last=Gale |first=Robert L. |title=An Ambrose Bierce companion |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |year=2001 |pages=57β58 |isbn=978-0-313-31130-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SWZkmUJEGkQC&pg=PA57}}</ref> [[File:Joaquin Miller - Brady-Handy.jpg|thumb|left|alt=A finely detailed monochrome photograph portrait of a bearded and mustachioed man in his 30s or 40s, shown from the waist up, wearing a jacket and vest over a white shirt with its collar closed by a cravat secured by a jeweled finger ring, a multi-corded watch fob hanging from a vest button, decorated by another ring, the man's hands together in his lap, his body leaning to the left and the head turned to the right, his dark hair full and long in the back, long but thin on top, revealing a high forehead|[[Joaquin Miller]] in the 1870s]] In mid-1870, Coolbrith met the eccentric poet Cincinnatus Hiner Miller, newly divorced from his second wife, and introduced him to the San Francisco literary circle at the suggestion of Stoddard. Miller quoted Tennyson in describing Coolbrith as "divinely tall, and most divinely fair".<ref name=Herny22>Herny, 2008, pp. 22β23.</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Tennyson |first=Alfred |title=Poems of Tennyson |editor=Henry Van Dyke |publisher=Ginn |location=Boston |year=1903 |series=The Athenaeum Press Series |page=[https://archive.org/details/poemstennyson00tenngoog/page/n184 56] |url=https://archive.org/details/poemstennyson00tenngoog }}</ref> When Coolbrith discovered that Miller was enamored of the heroic, tragic life of the legendary ''[[Californios|Californio]]'' outlaw [[Joaquin Murrieta]], she suggested that Miller take the name [[Joaquin Miller]] as his pen name, and also that he dress the part with longer hair and a more recognizably [[mountain man]]-style costume.<ref name=CATE/> Coolbrith then helped Miller prepare for his upcoming trip to England, where he would lay a [[laurel wreath]] on the tomb of Lord Byron, a poet they both greatly admired.<ref name=Examiner1892/> The two gathered [[Umbellularia|California Bay Laurel]] branches in [[Sausalito, California|Sausalito]] and took [[portrait]] photographs together. Coolbrith wrote "With a Wreath of Laurel" about this enterprise.<ref name=Herny22/> Miller went to New York by train, calling himself "Joaquin Miller" for the first time,<ref name="MillerTimeline2008"/> and was in London by August 1870. When he placed the wreath at the [[Church of St. Mary Magdalene, Hucknall]], it caused a stir among the English clergy who did not see any connection between California poets and the late lord. They sent to [[Constantine I of Greece|Constantine I, the King of Greece]] for another laurel wreath from that country of Byron's heroic death, accompanied by some Greek funding which was joined in kind from the purse of the [[Bishop of Norwich]] to rebuild and refurbish the 500-year-old church. The two wreaths were hung side by side over Byron's tomb.<ref name=Examiner1892/> After this, Miller was nicknamed "The Byron of the West."
Edit summary
(Briefly describe your changes)
By publishing changes, you agree to the
Terms of Use
, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 License
and the
GFDL
. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)