Search will soon be on for 2nd Native American Poet Laureate

Barbara Quin (LittleCrow Walking Eagle), honorary chief of the White Buffalo Tribe in Springfield, Missouri, advises that plans are under way for sponsorship of the Second Annual White Buffalo Poet Laureate Contest to be held in 2011, but details will not be announced until closer to the end of this year. Barbara invites all interested persons to contact her at whitebuffalopoet@yahoo.com. Or, if interested in getting hard copies of the rules when ready to mail, please send a request and #10 self-addressed stamped envelope to:

White Buffalo 2011 Poetry, P. O. Box 1821, Monterey, CA 93942-1821 Being a legally registered, tribal-affiliated Native American is not necessary; writing in the spirit of the Great Spirit is mandatory

Dr. Carl B. Reed, Cherokee chiropractor from Altus, Oklahoma was winner of the first White Buffalo Native American Poet Laureate Award. Runners up, who won the 2010 White Buffalo Calf Awards, were Barbara Youngblood Carr, Austin, Texas, and Dr. Charles A. Stone, Austin, Texas. To see their winning poems, order the book in which they appear along with the results of the 2009 challenge we published to write your impressions about the Unknown Namesake (elderly unnamed Native American woman), please look up Gifts of the Great Spirit by clicking the White Buffalo link on the top of the home page of the Great Spirit Publishing web site at www.spiritstreams.webs.com

The Last Indian on the Trail of Tears rides… again?

Just when you hope you’re free of something that’s kept coming back, it pops up again. So, here’s Wanda Sue Parrott in her White Buffalo regalia again. Why? Because the poetry book that netted her a $91,000 check from City of Springfield, Missouri in 2009 has now been nominated for a great award by Book Publicists of Southern California: The IRWIN Award for best visionary book campaign. It’s a revised version of the first few editions, and some of you who contributed to the memorial fund for Hester, the computer that died on 5/21/10, received a copy. You know who you are. Thanks! If Wanda wins the award in October, you might own a valuable item, because only fifty copies were published and signed. More copies will now be printed, with the proceeds going toward promotion of the 2011 Native American Poet Laureate contest. Wanda is also an honorary chief of the White Buffalo Tribe. By the way, her latest version of The Last Indian on the Trail of Tears contains drawings of the five Osage spirits that helped her gather evidence needed to win the $91,000 that settled her years-long legal matter in which she singlehandedly tried the city in the court of poetic public opinion while she was being flooded with sewage. Was the $91,000 a payoff to run her out of town? Was $91,000 the most money any living poet has ever made for a single work of poetry? Who were the seven Native American spirits who guided her to victory?

Read the book! Send $10 for your copy now (price includes postage). Make check payable to Wanda Sue Parrott and send to P. O. Box 1821, Monterey, California 93942-1821. Thanks to all who helped in the computer-crash crisis. Hester was replaced by a laptop known only by its generic—totally non-Native American--name: Toshiba.

What’s Next? 2010 and 2011 SENIOR POETs LAUREATE POETRY COMPETITIONs

Following completion of the mailing of this edition of The Diploemat to all entrants of the 2010 contest, as well as to a number of entrants from prior competitions, the winners will be posted on our web site for public viewing in the online version of this newsletter and in the contests section. Vera-Jane Goodin Schultz is serving as publisher of the anthology GOLDEN WORDS, on which she will be working with web master Al Baker, while Wanda Sue Parrott turns her attention to the nationwide publicity campaign in which winners of each state are announced to the governor, press and other publications of each state; she then begins publicizing next year’s contest by contacting editors around the world. Details about the 19th Annual SPL event will be posted on the web site after 1/1/11. For three people who tried to retire (more than once) from SPL, it looks like we’d better get to work!!

www.amykitchenerfdn.org