40th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering

Wyoming Poet Laureate Emeritus Patricia Frolander is author of award-winning books including Married Into It and Second Wind. For more than 50 years, she has ranched in the Black Hills, enjoying a profession that brings families closer to livestock and nature, and that develops pride... Read More →

Lone Piñon is a New Mexican string band, or orquesta típica, whose music celebrates the integrity and diversity of their region’s multicultural and rural roots. The group spurs creativity around the oldest sounds of the region's traditional string music, which had all but disappeared... Read More →

Sam Platts and the Plainsmen is an energetic Americana band that brings traditional country and western swing to modern audiences. Sam’s songwriting is in the vein of “old” country music, and his inspiration comes from rural, agricultural life and his family’s western heritage... Read More →

M.L. Smoker is Nakoda, Dakota, and Lakota, a citizen of the Fort Peck Tribes, and rooted in her family’s homeplace Tabexa Wakpa (Frog Creek). M.L.’s poems speak to  themes of personal struggle and identity, drawing from Native American culture, language, and history. “Being... Read More →