Gordon W. Norris
American poet
Gordon William Norris (died December 17, 1961) was an American poet who served as California Poet Laureate from 1953 until his death.
Early life
Norris was born in Redlands, California. His father Matthew Tyler Norris was born within the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel in San Gabriel. His mother Ann Wolliscroft was born in Worth County, Iowa. He had a brother named Lorain D. Norris.
Norris was educated at schools in the Imperial Valley and Big Creek.
Writing career
In 1949, Norris released a book called Golden Empire to celebrate the centennial of California. It was the inspiration for a float by the Native Daughters and Native Sons of the Golden West in the 1954 Rose Parade. Norris himself was present on the float.
Due to his publication of Golden Empire, Norris was appointed California Poet Laureate on 9 June, 1953.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Gordon W. Norris” as american poet. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american poet. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q105719546. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1961, 1953, 1949 and 1954.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gordon W. Norris” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.