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| CaliforniaMuseum.org |
What do Ina Coolbrith, Julia Child, Dian Fossey, and Tina Turner have in common?
All have been inducted into the 18th class of the California Hall of Fame.
Learn more about the all-women 18th class here.
Ina walked to California on the Overland Trail at age eleven and fell in love with poetry under open skies. She started publishing poems at age fifteen and became the heart of early San Francisco's literarti. As Oakland's first public librarian, she mentored Isadora Duncan and Jack London.
She was crowned California's first poet laureate during the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, making her the nation's first state laureate.
This is a win for Ina's legacy and for poets! Ina loved poetry and she loved California. "For California is a poem!" she said, words that are carved into the marble rotunda of the California State Library building in Sacramento.
Read more about Ina in my biography,
Ina Coolbrith: The Bittersweet Song of California's First Poet Laureate,
Bronze Medal in Biography, 2016 Independent Publisher Book Awards
