Ina Coolbrith Memorial Poetry Prize

Established in 1933

Description. The Ina Coolbrith Memorial Poetry Prize is awarded for the best unpublished poem or group of poems by an undergraduate student at the University of California campuses, University of the Pacific, Mills College, Stanford University, Santa Clara University, and St. Mary's College. For complete information read the General Rules. For information regarding other campuses read Information for Other Participating Campuses.

Prize Amount. Approximately $500 will be divided at the judges' discretion. Federal financial aid regulations require that all awards received by a student can not exceed their financial aid need as determined by a congressional formula. It is possible, therefore, that the cash award for a prize could reduce some component of a needy student's package of financial aid awards. In these cases, the Financial Aid and Scholarships Office attempts first to reduce loan or work aid; fellowships, grants, or scholarships are only reduced as a last resort.

Deadline. Submissions from UC Berkeley students must be hand-delivered by the author to the Undergraduate Scholarships, Prizes, and Honors Office, 220 Sproul Hall, no later than 4 p.m on December 1. The author's name must not appear on the entry.

History of the Prize. On March 18, 1933, a fund of $1,000 contributed by various donors was offered to the Regents for a poetry prize in memory of Ina Coolbrith, Poet Laureate of the State of California. The Ina Coolbrith Memorial Fund was accepted by the Regents on May 11, 1933.

Previous Winners

2010-11: 23 Berkeley entries; 1st Nathan McClain (UCLA) $400; 2nd Todd McClintock (UC Davis) $300; 3rd Lynn Wang (UC Irvine) and Kazumi Chin (UC Riverside) $150 each; UC Berkeley winners: Kathryn Hindenlang and Christine Deakers

2009-10: 28 Berkeley entries; 1st Wesley Holtermann (UCSB) $400; 2nd Katrina Kaplan (UC Berkeley) and Briony Gylgayton (UC Davis) $150 each; 3rd Angela Eun Ji Koh (UCI), Isabelle Avila (UC Merced) and Jared Sandusky-Alford (UC Berkeley) $100 each

2008-09: 32 Berkeley entries; 1st Steven Lance $400 (UC Berkeley); 2nd Esteban Ismael Alvarado (UC Riverside) and Marianna Tekosky (UCLA) $200 each; 3rd Eden Orlando (UCSC) and Kevin Eldridge (UC Riverside) $100 each

2007-08: 45 entries; 1st Katie Quarles (UCSC) $300; 2nd R. XiXi Hu (UCLA) $200

2006-07: Julia Jackson (Mills College) $500

2005-06: 53 entries; Athena Nilssen (UCLA) and Crystal Reed (UCSB), $200 each; Honorable Mention: Renee K. Nelson (UCSC) $100

2004-05: 49 entries; 1st Jennifer Liou (UCI) $250; 2nd, Neil Ferron (Santa Clara University) $150; 3rd, Laura Mattingly (UCSC) $100

2003-04: 56 entries; 1st Jamie Michele Gill (UC Davis) and Laura Wetherington (UC Berkeley) $150 each; 2nd Olivia Friedman (UC Berkeley) and Tina Sohaili (UCI) $100 each

2002-03: 36 entries; 1st Amaranth Borsuk (UCLA) $300; 2nd Christina Ross (UC Irvine) $200

2001-02: 46 entries; 1st Kristen Holden, (UCSC) $250; 2nd awarded to Pepper Luboff (UC Berkeley) $150; 3rd Yasmin Golan (UC Berkeley) $100

2000-01: 38 entries; 1st Hannah Love (Mills College) $300, 2nd Elsie Rivas (Santa Clara University) $200, Allyson Seal and John Cross (UCLA) $50 each

1999-00: Francesca Hersh (UCSC), Maggi Michel (UCLA), Aeryn Seto (UC Berkeley), Virginia Whitney Weigand (UC Davis) $100 each

1998-99: 62 entries; 1st Gareth S. Lee (Santa Clara University) $250; 2nd Kristen Robertson (Mills College) $150; 3rd Jasmine Donahaye (UC Berkeley) $100

1997-98: 54 entries; 1st Emma Marxer (Mills College) $150; 2nd E. Tracy Grinnell (Mills College) $100; 3rd Ronald Laran (UC Davis), Lisa Visendi (St. Mary's) and Shannon Welch (UCSC) $50 each; Honorable Mention to Laura-Marie Taylor, UCSB

Information for Other Participating Campuses

Each participating campus may submit three entries selected from submissions on their campus. While the judging rotates from campus to campus, the judging campus must first forward its entries to UC Berkeley by December 1.

Manuscript should be typewritten. A separate page must be included listing the information noted in General Rules. Since manuscripts cannot be returned and may go astray in the mail, duplicates should be retained.

Winning manuscripts are filed in the University Archives at the Bancroft Library on the UC Berkeley campus.

Entries may be sent to:

Coordinator, Committee on Prizes
Undergraduate Scholarships, Prizes, and Honors
220 Sproul Hall #1964
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720

Questions:
prizes@berkeley.edu
(5l0) 642-3498

Ina Donna Coolbrith (1841-1928)

Born Josephine Donna Smith, oldest daughter of Don Carlos and Agnes Coolbrith Smith, in Nauvoo, Illinois, March 10, 1841, she entered California through the Beckwourth Pass in a covered wagon train in 1852. Her first poems were published in the Los Angeles Times in 1854. After a brief and tragic marriage at 17, and the death of her child, she moved in the 1860s to San Francisco, where she worked as a journalist on the Overland Monthly. Later she was librarian of the Mechanics Institute Library and the Bohemian Club library, and was the first librarian of the Oakland Public Library. She lost her San Francisco home and all her possessions in the earthquake and fire of 1906. Through the generosity of the best-known California writers of the day, another home was built on Russian Hill, where she lived until the infirmities of age led her to share the home of her niece in Berkeley in 1923. She died there on February 29, 1928.

Ina Coolbrith received many honors, including Poet Laureate of the State of California. She was the first person asked to write a Commencement Ode for the University of California and the first woman member of San Francisco's Bohemian Club. In 1924 Mills College awarded her an honorary Master of Arts degree; as a young woman she had attended Mills, known at the time as Benicia College for Women. On the day of her funeral the Legislature adjourned in her memory and afterward named a 7,900-foot peak near Beckwourth Pass "Mount Ina Coolbrith."

Ina Coolbrith corresponded with Tennyson, Whittier, Longfellow, and Lowell, and was close friends with Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Gertrude Atherton, Joaquin Miller, Charles Warren Stoddard, and William Keith. Jack London called her his "literary mother." Isadora Duncan recalled in her memoirs "the beauty and fire of the poet's eyes."

At the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915 she was appointed President of the Congress of Authors and Journalists. At the Exposition a formal presentation of a laurel wreath was made to her by Dr. Benjamin Ide Wheeler, president of the University of California, and the Board of Regents, with the title "loved, laurel-crowned poet of California."

Some of Ina Coolbrith's most powerful poems were written after her 80th birthday. Her published works include A Perfect Day and Other Poems, Songs from the Golden Gate, and the posthumously published Wings of Sunset.