Wikipedia:Peer review/Ina Coolbrith/archive1

Ina Coolbrith

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Ina Coolbrith was California's first poet laureate, and a very interesting character in early San Francisco history. I've listed this article for peer review because it has passed a fairly sturdy good article review, and has since been improved, with all citations in cite template format. Binksternet (talk) 23:39, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Finetooth comments: This is a most interesting biographical article, and one that I enjoyed reading. I was tired when I started and planned to review it tomorrow, but I got caught up and read through to the end. I think the article is close to ready for FAC, but I can't be sure it's comprehensive. The images are by and large quite good, and the poetry samples in boxes work well. With a few exceptions as noted below, the writing is professional. Here are some suggestions for further improvement.

Lead

• "she was the first California Poet Laureate and thus the first poet laureate of any American state" - The word "thus" strikes me as odd. Why would the first state poet laureate necessarily come from California? This needs to be explained, probably in the main text rather than in the lead. Did California lead the way?

• "a prominent and beloved" - Almost everyone is beloved is some quarters and less so in others. Even though "beloved" is sourced, "prominent" is probably enough.

Poet laureate

• The direct link from the caption to an external site, Google books, is a no-no. (WP:MOS#External links has details). However, you could turn it into an inline citation appearing in the "Notes" subsection of "References", or you could create an "External links" section and place it there.

• WP:MOSQUOTE suggests using blockquotes for quotation of four lines or more. The second blockquote in this section is only two lines long on my computer screen. It would probably be better to change it to an ordinary quotation embedded in the text.

Death

• "A book of Coolbrith's later poetry was published in the year after her death, entitled Wings of Sunset." - Slightly misplaced modifier; Her death didn't have a title. Suggestion: Wings of Sunset, a book of Coolbrith's later poetry, was published in the year after her death."

• "The University of California established the Ina Coolbrith Memorial Poetry Prize in 1933, given annually... ". - Another slightly misplaced modifier; 1933 wasn't given. Suggestion: "In 1933, the University of California established the Ina Coolbrith Memorial Poetry Prize, given annually... ".

• Several extremely short paragraphs give this section a choppy feel. I'd recommend merging the poetry prize, writers club, and Separations paragraphs.

• The Manual of Style advises against creating text sandwiches between two images. These should be re-located to avoid the text sandwich, and it might be that three images is too many for this short section. The 1936 mural is the least interesting of the three, and it might have licensing problems. U.S. copyright law has no "freedom of panorama" provision; in practice this means that sculptures are often protected by copyright in such a way that photographs of them cannot be published on Wikipedia. WP:Freedom of panorama has details.

Selected poems

• All of the direct links to external sites should be converted to in-line citations or added to "External links".

References

• Citation 50 has a typo or other small problem.

Bibliography

• For books with no ISBN, it's often possible to add an OCLC number. Here is a link to the WorldCat page with at least some of the editions of the Dickson book. I don't see a 1947 edition. Could it be the 1957 edition?

• I would add the place of publication as well as the publisher.

Images

• On the license page for File:Ina Coolbrith teens.jpg, it would be good to add a link to the original source if you can.

Other

• Coolbrith was to some extent popular during her lifetime. Has her work appeared in any collections or anthologies since 1950? Do late 20th or early 21st century critics ever discuss her work? If so, what have they said?

I hope these suggestions prove helpful. If so, please consider reviewing another article, especially one from the backlog at WP:PR. That is where I found this one. Finetooth (talk) 04:01, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Fantastic feedback! I will act upon your suggestions as soon as possible. Binksternet (talk) 05:12, 29 June 2010 (UTC)