Editing Ina Coolbrith (section)

==Poet laureate==
[[File:Ina Coolbrith 1918.jpg|thumb|left|alt=A monochrome engraving, bust portrait of a woman in her 40s or 50s, wearing a white blouse with a high, open collar made of lace, hair curled and secured atop the head, the woman shown in profile looking directly to the right|Portrait of Coolbrith from a publication of her poem ''California'', 1918]]
In 1911, Coolbrith accepted the presidency of the Pacific Coast Woman's Press Association, and a park was dedicated to her, at 1715 Taylor Street, one block from her pre-earthquake home. Coolbrith was named honorary member of the [[California Writers Club]] around 1913, a group that eventually grew into a state-wide organization.<ref>{{cite web |publisher=California Writers Club |url=http://www.calwriters.org/html/about.html |title=About CWC: History |access-date=July 8, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090630042922/http://www.calwriters.org/html/about.html |archive-date=June 30, 2009 |url-status=dead }}</ref> In 1913, [[Ella Sterling Mighels]] founded the [[California Literature Society]] which met informally once a month at Coolbrith's Russian Hill home, newspaper columnist and literary critic [[George Hamlin Fitch]] presiding. Mighels, who has been called California's literary historian, credited her breadth of knowledge to Coolbrith and the society meetings.<ref name=Mighels/>

In preparation for the 1915 [[Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915)|Panama&ndash;Pacific International Exposition]] in San Francisco, Coolbrith was named President of the Congress of Authors and Journalists. In this position she sent more than 4,000 letters to the world's most well-known writers and journalists. At the Exposition itself on June 30, Coolbrith was lauded by Senator [[James D. Phelan]] who said that her early associate Bret Harte called her the "sweetest note in California literature."<ref name=Taylor/> Phelan continued, "she has written little, but that little is great. It is of the purest quality, finished and perfect, as well as full of feeling and thought."<ref name=Taylor/> The ''Overland Monthly'' reported that "eyes were wet throughout the large audience"<ref name=Taylor/> when Coolbrith was crowned with a laurel wreath by [[Benjamin Ide Wheeler]], President of the [[University of California]], who called her the "loved, laurel-crowned poet of California."<ref name=JackLondons/> After several more speeches were made in her honor, and bouquets brought in abundance to the podium, Coolbrith, wearing a black robe with a sash bearing a garland of bright orange [[California poppy|California poppies]], addressed the crowd, saying, "There is one woman here with whom I want to share these honors: [[Josephine Clifford McCracken]]. For we are linked together, the last two living members of Bret Harte's staff of ''Overland'' writers."<ref name=McCracken>{{cite journal|last=McCracken |first=Josephine Clifford |date=November 1915 |title=Ina Coolbrith Invested With Poets' Crown |journal=Overland Monthly |volume=LXVI |issue=5 |pages=448–450 |url=https://archive.org/stream/overlandmonthly2665sanfrich#page/448/mode/1up}}</ref> McCracken was then ushered up from her seat in the audience to join Coolbrith.<ref name=Taylor/> Coolbrith's official status as [[California Poet Laureate]] was confirmed in 1919 as the "Loved Laurel Crowned Poet of California"<ref name=CaliforniaPoet>{{cite web|url=http://www.cac.ca.gov/poetlaureate/main.php |title=California Poet Laureate |year=2009 |publisher=California Arts Council |access-date=February 23, 2010 |location=Sacramento, California |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100218023018/http://www.cac.ca.gov/poetlaureate/main.php |archive-date=February 18, 2010 |url-status=dead }}</ref> by the [[California State Senate]] with no financial support attached.<ref name=Redman/>

Several months after the San Francisco fair, at the [[Panama-California Exposition (1915)|Panama&ndash;California Exposition]] held in [[San Diego, California|San Diego]], festivities included a series of Authors' Days, featuring 13 California writers. November 2, 1915, was "Ina Coolbrith Day": her poems were recited, a lecture on her life was given by [[George Wharton James]], and her poetry was set to music and performed on piano and voice, with compositions by James, [[Humphrey John Stewart]], and [[Amy Beach]].<ref>{{cite book|last=James|first=George Wharton|author2=Bertha Bliss Tyler|year=1917|url=https://archive.org/details/expositionmemor00frangoog |title=Exposition Memories|publisher=The Radiant life press|pages=[https://archive.org/details/expositionmemor00frangoog/page/n77 63]–64}}</ref>

In 1916, Coolbrith sent copies of her poetry collections to her cousin [[Joseph F. Smith]] who publicized her sending them to him and her identity as a niece of [[Joseph Smith]], which upset her. She told him that "To be crucified for a faith in which you believe is to be blessed. To be crucified for one in which you do not believe is to be crucified indeed." She assured him she was not angry but she certainly was not pleased.<ref name="Hales" />

Coolbrith continued to write and work to support herself. From 1909 to final publication in 1917, she painstakingly collected and edited a book of Stoddard's poetry, writing a foreword and joining her short memorial poem "At Anchor" to verse submitted by Stoddard's friends Joaquin Miller, George Sterling and Thomas Walsh.<ref>{{cite book |last=Stoddard |first=Charles Warren |author-link=Charles Warren Stoddard |editor=Ina Coolbrith |year=1917 |url=https://archive.org/details/poemsofcharles00stodrich |title=Poems of Charles Warren Stoddard |publisher=John Lane company}}</ref> At the age of 80, McCracken wrote to Coolbrith to complain to her dear friend of still having to work for a living: "The world has not used us well, Ina; California has been ungrateful to us. Of all the hundred thousands the state pays out in pensions of one kind and another, don't you think you should be at the head of the pensioners, and I somewhere down below?"<ref>Egli, 1997, p. 113.</ref>