Ina (Donna) Coolbrith

Writer, born near Springfield, Illinois, USA. A Californian from childhood until her death, she lived after 1865 in San Francisco, where she was Bret Harte's co-editor on Overland Monthly. Thirty years a librarian, she published three volumes of distinctively simple lyrical verse (1881–95) that were to earn her selection as the state's first poet laureate (1915).

Ina Coolbrith (born Josephine Donna Smith) (March 10, 1841-1928) was a poet and writer, and a prominent and beloved figure in the San Francisco literary community.

She was a friend of Samuel Clemens, Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard, and Joaquin Miller, and contributed articles to the influential magazine, the Overland Monthly.

Coolbrith's mother brought her daughter to California in 1851 after leaving a polygamous marriage in the Latter-day Saint community.

In 1873 she became librarian at the Oakland Free Library, and, in 1895, befriended and mentored the young Jack London.