Poets

Donald Benson Blanding was an American poet who loved the climate of Hawaii and was sometimes described as "poet laureate of Hawaii".

Don Blanding was born on November 7, 1894, in Kingfisher, Oklahoma (in the period as a territory prior to that state's creation). He trained between 1913 and 1915 at The Art Institute of Chicago is where he trained between 1913 – 1915 as a journalist, author of prose, illustrator, and a speaker.

During World War 1 he enlisted as part of the Canadian Army's predominantly American 97th ("American Legion") Battalion, training for 8 months for trench warfare. He left this service for reasons which were not clear a few days before the unit shipped out to Europe in 1916. A year later he joined the US Military but made no reference to his previous experience in the Defence Forces.

Blanding soon became fascinated by Hawaii and travelled there, staying for the year until his enlistment in the U.S. Army in December, 1917. Entering as an infantry private, he underwent officer training and was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant before being discharged in December, 1918, soon after the Armistice Day.

He returned to his studies in 1920, in Paris and London, travelled in Central America and the Yucatan, and resumed living in Honolulu in 1921. Working as an artist in an advertising agency, he was to spend the next two years writing poems which was published daily in the Honolulu Star Bulletin for an advertiser. These featured local people and events, ..