She was regarded as a major poet during her life,[1] labeled by William Thomas Stead "the Browning of American poetry".

[3] Branch spent most of her school years in New York and Brooklyn where she studied at Smith College, as well as Froebel and Adelphi Academies, which were near her father's law practice.

[4] After graduating from Smith College in 1897, she studied dramaturgy at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, earning her degree in 1900.

And her most famous single poem "Nimrod"—a blank verse epic staged at the Empire Theatre in 1908—is about a Biblical king who inspired several pre-Raphaelite works.

There she created the Poet's Guild, whose members, including Edwin Arlington Robinson, William Rose Benét, Percy MacKaye, and Margaret Widdemer, taught classes at the house.

Poems were nicely printed and sold for five cents each, people were able to get poetry cheaply and the profits would go back into the settlement house work.