 Of course there are other themes, many of which are related back to her life as an anthropologist.Though she commonly shies away from her career as an anthropologist, constantly stating that she isn't really one of them (as she does in "Neon Scars" and her piece on whiteshamanism), the reader is constantly reminded of her involvement in history and science through the poetry's imagery and historical epigraphs.While any of these could be discussed at length, one of the most prevalent themes Wendy Rose employs, which ties together many of the other more obscure themes, is the concept vividly expressed in the poem "For the White poets who would be Indian" (discussed below) known as “whiteshamanism.”

Whiteshamanism is a term coined by the Cherokee critic, Geary Hobson, which he defined to be “the apparently growing number of small-press poets of generally white, Euro-Christian American background, who in their poems assume the persona of the shaman, usually in the guise of an American Indian medicine man.