40th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering

Maria Lisa Eastman and her husband Skip recently retired from their farm and ranch in Wyoming's Big Horn Basin. They now live in Sonoita, located in the high desert grasslands of southeast Arizona. Maria Lisa is really enjoying the softer weather and more time to continue her lifetime... Read More →

Amy Hale is an award-winning author who lives and works on the Spider Ranch, a 50,000-acre cattle operation in central Arizona. She and her husband Gail Steiger cowboy together, spending many nights sleeping on the ground in remote camps, cooking over an open fire, and gathering cattle... Read More →

Henry Real Bird, a member of the Apsáalooke (Crow) Nation, grew up ranching on the battlegrounds of the Little Bighorn. He still lives on the Crow Reservation in Montana, saying “this is it, I’m not going anywhere.” A former rodeo cowboy and bronc rider, now a renowned poet... 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 →