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Poems for the week of February 15:
Journalist and photographer Jeri Dobrowski
shared a recent article about a new film,
Sweetgrass: The Last Ride of the American
Cowboy, which interested many who
read it, particularly those involved in sheep ranching in the West.
The article, "End
of an era recorded," by Brett French, appears
here
in the
Billings (Montana) Gazette. The film
"...documents Big Timber ranchers Lawrence and Elaine Allestad’s
3,000 head of sheep being herded to and tended in high mountain
pastures in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness Area."
Arthur Chapman (1873-1935) wrote
several poems about sheep, both serious and humorous. His
Herder's Reverie sets a vivid scene:
The sheep are down at the water, a-drinkin' their
bloomin' fill,
An' me and the dog are dozin', as herders and collies will;
The world may be movin' somewheres, but here it is standin' still.
....
Chapman is best known for
his poem, Out Where the West Begins, which was
one of the most popular American poems of its time. South Dakota radio and
rodeo broadcaster Jim Thompson recites the
poem on
The BAR-D Roundup: Volume Two.
Read more poetry and more about Arthur Chapman in our feature
here.
Contemporary poets and sheepmen
Sam Jackson and
Tom Nichols are among those who write
about sheep ranching.
In 2007 the Western Folklife Center released a Deep
West Records CD,
Songs
and Stories from Sheepherding, a project
that was five years in the making. The CD is described, "Hear the songs,
verse and stories of shepherds who came to America to pursue the American Dream,
including Scots, Scandinavians, Basques, Greeks, Iris, Mexicans and Peruvians.
This historic collection is based on the expressive arts of sheep ranching—the
'other' ranching tradition...This CD includes extensive notes, photos and translations to the songs and
poems."
The 29 tracks include Sam
A. Jackson's "Toast to the Sheepherder," J. B. Allen (reciting Curley Fletcher's
"Sheep Herders Lament"), and more
from Rosalie Sorrels, Martin Goicoechea, Della
Turner & the Deseret String Band, John "Jake" Fleming, Linda Hussa,
Dee Blackburn, Diane Josephy Peavy, Ringling Five, and others.
Posted 2/16
A contemporary poem from the archive...
Darrell
Arnold,
editor and
publisher of the greatly missed
Cowboy Magazine,
alludes to a whole other kind of ranching and poetry in his poem,
Cowboy Poultry Gatherin':
I learned about this gatherin'
When a neighbor passed the word,
And it struck me as the dumbest
thing
That I had ever heard.
He said a bunch of cowboys
Had been comin' here for years
For a great big poultry
gatherin'.
I could not believe my ears.
....
The
poem is included on The BAR-D
Roundup: Volume Two
(2007) and it is the title of
Darrell Arnold's poetry collection.
He has published many other books,
including In the Shadow of
the Peaks,
The Cowboy Kind,
Good Medicine: Humorous
Stories and Poems from COWBOY
MAGAZINE,
and Tales from Cowboy
Country: Stories from COWBOY
MAGAZINE.
He has contributed two essays to
CowboyPoetry.com, "No Excuse for
Lazy Poets," and "Add Polish to
Your Poetry." Find information
about all the books and essays and
more in our feature
here.
Posted 2/16
Welcome
Nancie McCormish
and her poem, Hay Fever. She
told us, "I
wrote this poem last summer in honor of my friends, Larry and Lynn
Richmond, who are hay producers here in the Yampa Valley in NW
Colorado. I was helping them bale as they are typically
short-handed. They work hard, like every mom and pop small
business..."
Photos from the day Nancie helped with haying are
featured in this week's
Picture the West.
Nancie is a horseback riding instructor,
"helping horses with their people and guiding people horseback over the
Rockies."
Read more here.
Posted 2/16
New Mexico rancher, writer, and poet
Deanna McCall
shares a new poem, Ice Flowers:
With ragged fingernail I scrape
lacy swirls of ice from window
see cows in winter’s landscape
backs hunched, frosted white with snow
Waiting for me to feed them, I know.
....
She
told us that she wasn't sure whether or not the recent winter
Art Spur with Tim Cox' painting,
"Hick's Hereford Heifers," helped inspire the poem.
"Hicks' Hereford Heifers" by
Tim
Cox
She
said that she had been working on it for a while, and talking with
her friend and poet Audrey Hankins
helped her to finish it. She says it was also inspired by finding
herself alone at the ranch when this year's first heavy snow fell,
and it brought "so much back...I used to spend weeks alone on the
ranch in Nevada, doing everything that needed doing...."
Deanna Dickinson McCall is a
fifth-generation rancher who was raised in the northern California
foothills. She spent 22 years ranching and raising her family on a
remote Nevada ranch and is currently ranching in New Mexico. She
writes from the view of daughter, hand, wife and mother. Her
daughter, Katie-McCall Owens and son, Rusty McCall, both write and
recite cowboy poetry.
She has been featured at
the Western Folklife Center's National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, the
Arizona Cowboy Poets Gathering, and at other gatherings and events
throughout the West. Her poems and prose are included in anthologies,
including
Cowgirl Poetry
and
CowboyPoetry: The Reunion,
and she has a recording,
Hot Iron.
Deanna Dickinson McCall's
grandfather's image (circa 1912) is featured on
The BAR-D Roundup: Volume Three.
Perry Preston ("P. P.") Dickinson
was a Texas cowboy, rough-string rider, Marshall, and Texas Ranger
special agent. Deanna wrote about him in a Picture the West entry.
[photo
Kevin
Martini-Fuller]
Posted 2/17
Welcome Oklahoma's
Layne Konkel
and his poem, We Are the Exalted.
Layne comments, "A documentary was done about a Nevada ranch. I
never actually saw the film, but some friends of mine were talking
about it. A lady reporter asked an old cowboy on the ranch why he
did it (endured the hardships of a cowboy). His response was 'we are
the exalted.' That phrase stayed with me, one night as I was
thinking about that phrase, this poem happened. I don't know if I
wrote it in the way that the old cowboy meant it, but this is how it
fell from my pen. Standing in the dust and sweat of a branding pen,
this term rings very true."
Lane told us, "I was born and raised in Kaycee, Wyoming. I ranched
in that area for several years out of high school before moving to
the Oklahoma panhandle. I have ranched in big country, turned out
wheat cattle, fed cattle, owned a sale barn, and ran sheep. There
are very few aspects of the cattle industry that I have not been
involved in. I love the lifestyle, and the principles that are found
in it. My family is also an important part of my life, my four kids
are a wonderful reason to wake up every morning. Seeing them grow up
with the same work ethic, morals, and skills that I knew as a child
is very important to me. Seeing our traditions and culture through
to the next generation is an exciting task, one that we are all
responsible for."
Posted 2/17
Welcome
Nebraska's
Mary "Kat" Logan
and her poem, Burwell. She
told us,
"My uncle, John Mullins is a very well known trainer and breeder of
Appaloosas, his foundation sire was a horse named Little Navajo Joe,
and I used to go during summers and help out on his ranch in upstate
New York...The Burwell part of course is from the big rodeo here in
Nebraska that I have gone to many times, so it's kind of a
combination of my experiences with horses with my uncle and watching
trick riders at the rodeo."
Read more about Mary along with her
poem.
Posted 2/18
Texas poet
Doyle R. "Doc" Wood
shares a poem from a childhood experience,
Once Wuz Enuf. He comments, "In
most instances, experience is the best teacher. This is especially
true when you're young and feel like you just gotta try everything
that life has to offer. This poem provides a good, and 100% true,
example of learning from experience. There is little, about the
experience described that has faded with time..."
Doc has a recent book, COLOR CHIPS in
Variegated Verse.
Read more the book and about Doc along with his
poem.
Posted 2/18
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Poems for the week of February 8, 2010:
Larry wrote to us, looking for S. Omar Barker's
(1895-1985)
poem, Canned
Termaters:
Them old time western cowboys mostly ate what
they could git,
And drank what turned up handy, but I've heard them all admit
They sometimes got so tired of beans, of beef and even 'taters,
They'd purt near swap their saddles for a bait of canned termaters.
About the only stuff in cans them days was pork and beans,
Terrmaters, Eagle milk, and corn, and maybe some sardines;
And none of these was plentiful out where the cow trails ran,
For grub come mighty costly when you bought it in the can.
But sometimes in the wagon bed of big ranch operators
You'd find maybe a case or two of stuff called canned termaters.
....
The Erwin E. Smith collection at the
Amon Carter Museum
includes a photo
here titled "Erwin
E. Smith Eating a Mid-Morning Snack," 1909-1910, showing
the photographer eating canned tomatoes in camp.
Richard W. Slatta's
The Cowboy Encyclopedia
comments, "On the trail, canned tomatoes helped to quench thirst.
Philip Ashton Rollins notes that acidic tomato juice counteracted
the ill effects of alkali dust inhaled by men on the trail. Even
the greenest cook could whip up a batch of 'pooch,' stewed
tomatoes mixed with bread and sugar."
The Culinary Arts Museum site, in a section
here about trail cooks, notes, "Canned foods were sometimes
carried on chuck wagons during cattle drives. On fancier wagons,
canned tomatoes were considered the 'greatest prize of all.'
Sometimes, cowboys carried cans of tomatoes while on the range to
cut their thirst. It can be argued that tomato juice certainly
tasted better than water from wagon barrels that often was
alkaline and 'wiggling with wildlife.'"
S. Omar Barker, one of the founders of the
Western Writers of America,
wrote thousands of poems and short stories, articles, novelettes, and a
novel. He was the first living author inducted into the Hall of Fame of
Great Westerners (now called the Hall of Great Westerners) by the
National Cowboy and Western
Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.
Read more of his poetry and more about him in our feature here.
Posted 2/8
A contemporary song from the archive...
Montana songwriter
Stephanie Davis
entranced her audience every time she took the stage at the recent
National Cowboy Poetry Gathering.
She writes heartbreaking ballads as well as humorous songs. One of her
popular songs on the light side is
Baling Twine:
Way out in the
country, miles from town
Things have a way of breaking down
At THE most inconvenient of times
Which can make the goin’ rather rough
Unless, of course, you know enough
To always, always carry baling twine
....
Stephanie Davis has been heard many
times on Garrison Keillor's
A Prairie Home
Companion. Her songs have been recorded by country music superstar
Garth Brooks,
Don Edwards,
Trisha Yearwood,
Maria Muldaur,
Joey and Rory,
Roger Whittaker,
Daniel O'Donnell,
Martina McBride,
Sam Moore and many
others. She's recorded a number of albums, including the recent
Western
Bliss
and
Western Bling
(find a feature about those CDs here).
Read more about her in our feature
here and visit her web site,
www.StephanieDavis.net.
Posted 2/8
Oregon's
Tom Nichols
shares his poem,
Dead Indian Memories, along with
photos in this week's Picture the West:
Lord,
An early ride,
With friend beside,
You’ve sent us on our way.
....
"Dead Indian"
refers to a road in Oregon's Rogue Valley and a site
here comments on its history.
Tom is the manager of Oregon State University’s Sheep
Research Unit and he and his wife run their own sheep on leased
permanent pastures and Willamette Valley grass seed fields.
Read more about him and his poetry
here at the BAR-D.
Posted 2/8
We asked
Andy Hedges
and
Andy Wilkinson
if they'd share the lyrics to their popular song,
The Glitterbus," which takes a spirited look at
the "business" of entertainment:
When the Glitterbus comes around
And stops on any street,
Folks line up like little kids
A-jigglin' for a seat;
The wannabes whistle and shout
To get their tickets punched,
The has-beens holler on their mobile phones
While they're making dates for lunch.
....
When the doors are finally closed
And the costume crowd's on board,
They form committees and they choose up sides
And they give themselves awards,
So the has-beens get it back,
So the wanna-bes don't get lost,
So everybody's somebody at last
So long as they don't get off.
The song is on
their 2009 CD,
Welcome to the Tribe,
an album of
cowboy folk music that
marries tradition and the present in its celebration of the "keepers of the
code" and the "members of the
tribe." Read more about it here
and listen to some tracks at their MySpace page:
www.myspace.com/welcometothetribe.
They introduced their newest CD,
Long Ways From Home in
performances (including Alissa Hedges) at the recent
National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. The new release is described, "... a collection of songs old and
new, traditional and contemporary, all cut from the same cloth of
the fundamental fabric of the human story: wanderers and travelers
making their way in unknown territory, cowboys and explorers cutting
for sign on new trails, and all those lost and lonely in the realms
of the mind or the heart or the spirit. As with their past projects,
the young Andy Hedges has sought out the old while the senior Andy
Wilkinson has crafted the new, all collaboratively arranged and laid
down with with the freshness and edge of real time recording that
features the harmonies of Alissa Hedges and special guests
Don Edwards (six string banjo) and
Curtis Peoples (bass)." Find more information
here.
See our feature about Andy Hedges here
and visit his web site
www.andyhedges.com; see Andy Wilkinson's web site at
www.andywilkinson.net.
[photos of Andy Hedges and Andy
Wilkinson from
Elko, 2009, by Jeri L.
Dobrowski;
see her gallery of western performers and
others
here.]
Posted 2/9
Denise McRea,
originally from Leadore, Idaho, just returned from her first invited appearance at
the recent
National Cowboy Poetry Gathering.
We asked her to share a poem that gives hope to the snowbound, a
poem she recited in one of her sessions,
Spring Days:
The first good days of spring
Kind of catch you by surprise.
It’s not as if a curtain lifts
And spring appears before your eyes.
It’s just the calves are feeling good,
Good enough to run and play,
And the old dogs stretch themselves way out
To soak up every ray
....
Denise went back to school several years ago and last year
graduated
summa cum laude
from the University of Montana Western in Dillon, with with a major in Secondary
Education, English and another in Education, Art K-12. She now
teaches in Salmon, Idaho.
[photo of Denise McRea, Butte, 2009 by
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Poems: New, Old, and Classic Cowboy Poetry continued from page 1
