Ina Coolbrith was crowned California’s first poet laureate during the Panama-Pacific International Exhibition. This year marks the centennial of her becoming California’s first laureate and America’s first state laureate.

Celebrate Earth Day, National Poetry Month, and Coolbrith’s centennial with Aleta George who will talk about Coolbrith’s love of California wildflowers. The California poppy was still ten years away from being named the official state flower when Coolbrith wrote “Copa de Oro” in 1893. In 1906 botanist Luther Burbank told Coolbrith that he had named a hybridized poppy after her, to which she replied that she hadn’t known when she wrote it that she was to become a member of the family.

Aleta George is the author of “Ina Coolbrith: The Bittersweet Song of California’s First Poet Laureate,” a new biography released in March 2015. She is a San Francisco Bay Area-based journalist who writes about nature and culture in California and is a frequent contributor to Smithsonian.com and Bay Nature.