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Poems for the week of August 16:
William Lawrence "Larry" Chittenden
(1862-1934) is best known for his 1890 poem, "The
Cowboys' Christmas Ball," which was included in his 1893 book,
Ranch Verses. Another vivid
poem from that book (with references to some of the characters in "The
Cowboys' Christmas Ball") is
Gettin' Back to the Ranch.
Well, fellers, I've got home agin, an' it seems sorty
strange
To mosey round the old corrals on this hyar lonely range.
This evenin' az the sun went down, and I cum up the trail
An' seen our little low-roofed house a-squattin' in the vale
An' when I struck the brandin' pens, heered old Pinto's barks
An' listened at the cagey Jack an' them ole medder larks,
Then when I looked at Skinout Hills a-veiled in purple air,
The twilight seemed to smile at me, an' glow a welcome there.
An' when I seen the S. B. brand, an' that ole sorghum stack,
Them saddles hangin' by the door, hit seemed like gittin' back;
But when I viewed that pided steer, and heered ye had no rain,
I knowed thet I had hit the ranch, hed shore got home again.
I've seen a heap uv pleasant things, and yet it did me good
Ter spy ole Jim in his ole jeans jest packin' in the wood!
An' thar wuz Buck an' Horseshoe Sam, an' thar upon the sill,
All smiles an' spurs an' high-heeled boots, wuz rustler Windy Bill.
Oh, Bill, they say, hez got renown, an' perhaps you may recall
How he performed one Christmas time an' led the 'Cowboys' Ball.'
....
The
1913 book,
Writers and Writings of Texas,
by David Foute Eagleton, includes the version of the poem that
we've posted. The book introduces Chittenden:
Larry Chittenden, "the Poet-Ranchman of Texas," was born in
Montclair, New Jersey, in 1862, and traces his American ancestry back to
1639. From these he inherited a sound body, business ability, a love of
learning, and a poetic nature.
Coming to Texas in 1883, he and his uncle, Hon. S. B.
Chittenden of New York, established the Chittenden Ranch in Jones County,
near Anson, in 1887. In addition to the farm and ranch in Texas, of 9,000
acres, which he now owns, Mr. Chittenden has a winter home in Bermuda, known
as "Larry's Lodge." Here he lately wrote a volume of Bermuda Verses
[...]
He began his literary career in 1880 with reportorial work
on New York periodicals and later on Texas periodicals. His descriptions of
ranch life and frontier scenes have given him place beside
Bret Harte and Joaquin Miller.
In 1893 he published Ranch Verses (G.P. Putnam's Sons, N.Y.), a
volume of poems now in its fourteenth edition
[...]
You can see (and download) the entire
Ranch Verses
book
here (the 1921, fifteenth edition) at
Google Books (in which this poem is called "Returning to the Ranch").
See an image of Larry Chittenden
here
at the
Anson Cowboy Christmas Ball web site. Chittenden's famous poem was
inspired by a cowboy Christmas dance he attended in Anson, Texas and the
event he made famous still takes place annually. Top cowboy singer
Michael Martin Murphey (www.MichaelMartinMurphey.com)
has been a part of the annual event in recent years. The next event is
December 16-19, 2010.
The
Handbook of Texas Online has a
biographical article
here about Chittenden.
Posted 8/16
A contemporary poem from the archive...
South Dakota cowboy and poet
Ken Cook has just been named the 2010 Top Male Cowboy Poet by the
Academy of Western Artists (see other award-winners and nominees
here).
Ken is also the current Lariat Laureate at CowboyPoetry.com, recognized for
his poem,
The Conversation:
What has not changed ol' cowboy friend
Since you was young and men were men?
When horse not broke till nearly five?
Cow's horns intact kept calf alive!
What has not changed in all your days,
Is nothin' left of cowboy ways?
....
Ken told us about the poem's inspiration:
On February 1, 2007, I did an interview at the National
Cowboy Poetry Gathering at the Deep West Sheep Camp with Laura Marcus. I
spent nearly the entire interview talking about my Grandpa Frank Buckles
and my kids and the changes in the cattle industry that have occurred over
three generations. Laura asked the question, "Ken, what has not
changed?" I thought for a moment then replied, "Cows." The one thing that
has not changed is the fact that cows are still...just cows. As I left the
sheep camp I pulled my pad and pen out of my pocket and wrote down the
line "cows are cows." And those three words prompted the creation of the
dialogue between a grandpa and his grandson that I call "The
Conversation."
For me, the poem has become ageless, with the passing of
my Grandpa, my kids growing up, and now a grandchild of my own. This thing
we call "life on the ranch" has a way changing with the seasons.
Ken has written other poems about his grandfather, and has
shared photos in Picture the West. See this week's
Picture the West entry for photos of Ken and his sons at a 2010 branding,
and find links to his previous Picture the West entries.
Ken Cook is featured on
The BAR-D Roundup: Volume Five,
with his poem,
Fill 'em Up to Overflowin'. That poem
is from Ken's most recent CD,
Cowboys Are Like That. See the track list
here and visit
Ken Cook's web site,
where you can hear tracks from the CD and from earlier recordings. He is
also included on Volumes Two, Three, and Four of
The BAR-D Roundup.
Read more about Ken and find some of his poetry
here at the BAR-D.
[photo by Jeri L. Dobrowski; see her
gallery of western performers and others
here.]
Posted 8/16
Poet and writer Jane Morton
shares a poem from her new book, In This Land of Little Rain. She
calls the poem Ground Tied:
I left the prairie long ago,
but she did not leave me.
She’s in my heart, my blood, my soul.
She’ll never let me be.
....
She writes, in her book's Introduction, "My poems tell about my
family, the grasslands of northeastern Colorado, and our ranch
seven miles southwest of Fort Morgan, which has been in the family
since 1915." The ranch, inherited by her brother, was sold in
2007. She says of her family's legacy, "For ninety years, they
were stewards of the land. When my grandparents died, they left
little money. They could have sold the ranch in their later years
and retired in town, but they weren't looking for short-term gain.
They were trying to build a heritage. Money wasn't as important as
the land. The land meant security. 'Take care of the land, and it
will take care of you,' was the creed they lived by, and it served
them well."
Jane has appeared at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering and is
a frequent performer at many other Western events. Her films about her family's
ranching life are a part of the Western Folklife Center's
Deep West Video project. She was an early
Lariat Laureate at CowboyPoetry.com and was named the 2007 Top Female Poet by
the Academy of Western Artists. Her poetry is featured on the first edition of
The BAR-D Roundup and The BAR-D Roundup: Volume Four.
Read more about
In This Land of Little Rain
and see the
complete table of contents here.
Find a selection of Jane Morton's poetry and more about her in our
feature
here.
Posted 8/17
Jessica Hedges' CD,
History in the Barn,
has just been named the 2010 Top Cowboy Poetry CD by the
Academy of Western Artists (see other award-winners and nominees
here).
S he
shares her poem,
Leo, and tells us
that it, "...is
the poem that really got me back into cowboy poetry. This is a true
story of my husband, two weeks into a job training colts for someone
else. We wondered if he was going to have a job or if we were going to
have a place to live, and the hardest part was he couldn't have done
anything different with that colt. It was just one of those things that
happen."
"Leo" is also on
History in the Barn.
Jessica Hedges grew up on a 450-thousand-acre cattle and hay
operation in northeastern Nevada, and now lives with her husband, Sam, in
Soap Lake, Washington on the ranch where he works.
Jessica will make her first invited appearance at
the Western Folklife Center's
27th National
Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada, January 24-29,
2011. Jessica often attended the gathering as she was growing up.
Read more about Jessica Hedges along with her poem.
Posted 8/19
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Be an important part of CowboyPoetry.com, Cowboy
Poetry Week,
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Please consider a contribution in support of
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Poems for the week of August 9:
Bruce Kiskaddon's
(1878-1950) poem,
The General Store:
Would you like to saddle your hoss once more,
And take a ride to the general store?
To meet the boys around the fire,
And find out who was the biggest liar.
....
was printed in the
Western Livestock Journal
in 1936 and in his 1947 book,
Rhymes of the Ranges.
Kiskaddon had hundreds of poems printed in the
Western
Livestock Journal and the Los Angeles Union Stock Yards calendars. Bill
Siems' impressive book,
Open Range; Collected Poems of Bruce Kiskaddon,
includes all of those poems, along with extensive background information about
the publications.
"The General Store" was illustrated by Katherine
Field. Bill Siems, in his introduction to
Shorty's Yarns (Kiskaddon's collected short stories) comments, "One of the reasons that
Kiskaddon's poems have been remembered when the stories have not,
why they were clipped from the Western Livestock Journal and pasted in ranch family albums or
saved from the monthly calendars published by the Los Angeles
Union Stockyards, is that many of the poems are beautifully
illustrated with line drawings created in ink by Katherine Field.
..."
In
Open Range,
Bill Siems reproduces an article by Frank M. King about Katherine
Field, her art, and the way she and Kiskaddon worked together.
King's article appeared the July 12, 1938 issue of
Western
Livestock Journal, where he wrote,
in part:
A heap of folks are interested in
the pictures that are drawn by Katherine Field, our famous
little cowgirl artist, and want to know something about her.
Well, folks, Katherine is the youngest of nine girls that Mr.
and Mrs. Nelson A. Field raised up there in high mountains of
Northwest Socorro County, New Mexico and she has never been very
far away from the ranch where she was born, except the four
years the family lived at Santa Fe, during the father’s term as
State Land Commissioner for New Mexico....
Field and Kiskaddon collaborated
for twenty years; they never met face-to-face.
See our feature about
Open Range and the complete table of
contents
here.
[photo courtesy Utah State University Press,
from our feature on
Shorty's Yarns]
Posted 8/9
A contemporary poem from the archive...
Well-loved singer, songwriter, poet, and musician
Curly Musgrave
died in December, 2009 and left behind an impressive body of a work. Curly,
like Bruce Kiskaddon above, wrote a poem about
The General Store:
There's a feed and tack in Dillon
Where old cowboys go to play
With checkers and with whitlin' knives
To jaw and pass the day
....
A new web site in tribute to Curly is at
www.CurlyMusgrave.com.
The site includes videos, photos, and information about Curly and
his recordings. A tribute album and video is forthcoming.
YouTube has a moving video produced by
Diane Tribitt that features,
"Cowboy Farewell," a song that is included on
Till We Meet Again,
a CD produced by Curly Musgrave's family (available in September,
2010). The song, co-written by Diane Tribitt and
Will Dudley, was recorded from audio
by Curly and added to by Belinda Gail
and RW Hampton after Curly's death.
See the video
here, where there is also pre-release order information.
See our feature about Curly Musgrave
here
and many tributes, photos,
and more
here.
[ photograph
by Lori Faith Merritt (www.photographybyfaith.com)]
Posted 8/9
Arizona poet
Carole Jarvis
captures cowboys' conversations and offers a look at their working
lives in her poem, Lovin' the
Life They're Livin':
There's laughter out in the dining room
and I pause in what I'm doin',
And smile, and think about those boys
who'll be drinkin' this coffee I'm brewin'
....
The poem is included in her book,
Time Not Measured by a Clock.
In the introduction to that book, former Western Horseman
Editor-in-Chief Gary Vorhes comments that Carole's poetry "...fit
us like a warm coat on a cold morning."
Carol has recorded this poem for the 2011 edition
of
The BAR-D Roundup.
Carole's bio tells of her California childhood,
and that, "The orange groves and farm fields that I rode horseback
through, are long gone and have been replaced with Tomorowland,
Fantasyland, and Frontierland." As a young woman, she worked in
Jackson Hole and tells, "My second summer working there, I met a
handsome cowboy who actually came riding by the cabin where I was
living, on a gorgeous coal-black filly. I've been teased about
whether I was smitten by the filly or the cowboy first!" She
married Dan Jarvis in 1957 and they lived and cowboyed in Wyoming,
Oregon and Arizona.
Sadly, Dan Jarvis died in March of this year.
Carole also shared a poem written in his memory, which is posted
here, and
here with other poems for
solemn occasions, and also on her page of poetry
here.
Carole Jarvis is the recipient of the Gail I. Gardner Award
for a Working Cowboy Poet from the
Arizona Cowboy Poets Gathering and the Western Heritage Award
from the Annual Cowboy
Christmas Poetry Gathering in Wickenburg, Arizona.
Carole will be at the Arizona Cowboy Poets Gathering this coming
weekend, August 13-14.
Read more about her
and her poetry in our feature
here.
Posted 8/9
 
Oregon poet and sheepman
Tom Nichols
was inspired by the recent
Art Spur—"She's a Hand," a painting by Joelle Smith —to
write Hey! We're Ranchin' Here!:
From down on the Pecos
And up beyond the Snake
Folks are quick to tell you,
Just, so there’s no mistake,
HEY! WE’RE RANCHIN’ HERE!
....
Tom comments, "There isn't a real apparent connection but I
can assure you the picture was the inspiration of the thought process that
produced the poem. One of my thoughts when I saw the picture was, 'I bet she
doesn't have to tell anyone, 'Hey! We're ranching here!,'' as my little
brother had to when a group of drunken college kids left a gate open and let
our cattle out. With those words and a few more (unfit to print) for emphasis,
he sent the drunks on their way. My brother was thirteen and in the last
months of his fight with leukemia at the time so he couldn't have begun to
back up his words."
Tom dedicates this poem to his brother, George.
Tom's bio tells, "Always too poor to
raise many cattle and too proud to raise goats, I have made my living with
sheep for the past twenty years. I have a town job as manager of Oregon State
University’s Sheep Research Unit. My evenings and weekends are spent helping
my wife with our own sheep which we run on leased permanent pastures and
Willamette Valley grass seed fields..."
Tom has shared a number of interesting
Picture the West entries and has another one
coming up soon.
Read more about Tom Nichols and more of his poetry along with
his poem.
Posted 8/12
Your support is essential to CowboyPoetry.com.
Be an important part of CowboyPoetry.com, Cowboy
Poetry Week,
the
Rural Library Project, and all of
the activities of the Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Receive the
Cowboy Poetry Week poster, available
exclusively to supporters, and other benefits.
Please consider a contribution in support of
CowboyPoetry.com and the
Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Contributions from people like you make possible this site, Cowboy Poetry
Week, the Rural Library Project, and the Center's other programs.
Read some of our supporters'
comments
here,
visit the
Wall of Support, and
join in
and be an important part of it all!
Poems for the week of August 2:
Vacationers are flocking to national parks, and it brings to mind a
poem by
S. Omar Barker
(1895-1985),
Grand Canyon Cowboy:
....
I anchored my horse to a juniper limb
And crawled to the edge for a peek.
One look was a plenty to make my head swim.
And all of my innards feel weak.
....
Read the rest of the poem and find a Grand
Canyon photo by Jeri Dobrowski here.
The poem was a favorite of the late
Colen Sweeten (more about him below) and
Rusty McCall sometimes recites the humorous poem.
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 8/2
A contemporary poem from the archive...
Colen Sweeten,
a friend and a favorite to all who knew
him, died three years ago this month. He had an
enormous repertoire of poems, stories, wisdom, and humor. One of his
popular poems is Cow on the Fight:
....
Oh, a cowboy is brave when he's mounted,
On a good horse with his rope and his spurs.
But when he's dancin' in the dust, with a cow he can't trust,
The advantage is definitely hers.
....
"Cow on the Fight" is included on the first edition of
The BAR-D Roundup
(2006).
Colen Sweeten
always
had a kind and cheerful word for all. He often said that he had so many
friends that he "wasn't even using them all."
Until his death in
August of 2007, Colen Sweeten participated in every
National Cowboy Poetry Gathering
except one. He appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
He was the recipient of the American West Heritage Pioneer Skill
Preservation award, presented to him by Michael Martin Murphey
at the Festival of the American West in 2004. He was honored with
the Esto Perpetua Award from the Idaho Historical Society in
2005.
Read more about Colen Sweeten and more of his poetry in our feature
here and find
tributes to Colen Sweeten, family photos, and more, posted
here.
The photo above is by
Jeri L. Dobrowski,
a special friend to Colen. It was taken in Kanab, Utah in 2005 at
the National Cowboy Poetry Rodeo. It was one
of Colen's favorite photos, and he liked many others that she took.
Jeri Dobrowski has a photo tribute to Colen at her web site,
here.
[2005 photo by Jeri
L. Dobrowski; see her gallery of western performers and others
here.]
Posted 8/2
We're back at the Grand Canyon (see S. Omar Barker's poem
above) with
Oregon poet and former rancher Byrl Keith Chadwell's
poem,
God's Back Yard:
You stand the
first time on the rim and gaze across this span
Your eyes take in some “awesome” sights that sure
ain’t made by man
Now “awesome” is a dandy word and brings some thoughts to
mind
But awesome’s not enough my friend, you're startin’ out
behind
....
He comments on the poem's
inspiration:
After we sold the ranch ...we
supposedly retired, It wasn't long 'til I realized that this ol'
cowboy couldn't get away from a lifetime of workin' with horses,
mules and livestock.
So....Barb and I took off in our RV for Arizona and I took a job
as a Grand Canyon Mule Guide, where I could work with lots of
mules, ride a lot every day and guide nice folks into one of the
most “awesome” places in God's creation.
From this perspective came the inspiration for “Gods’ Back
Yard.”
Read more along with his poem,
which includes a photo (and look forward to a
Picture the West related to the poem,
with more stunning images).
Byrl Keith Chadwell is on the
roster for a return appearance at the National
Cowboy Poetry Rodeo (September 17-18, 2010 in Montrose,
Colorado).
Posted 8/3
Welcome California's
David Haskell
and his poem,
Forty-Mile-An-Hour Alfalfa:
I still wonder what my old man
was thinking.
Why he bought this ground at the bottom of a crease.
With the Sierra Nevadas to the west,
and five hundred miles of desert to the east.
....
David told us, "The idea for the
poem came about when I was visiting a friend of mine that lives on
an alfalfa and cattle ranch up in Lassen County, California. It
was July and this thunderstorm blew through, dropping lightning
and kicking up dust, but not much rain. A few drops and that was
it. The wind blows so hard up there that it sandblasts his
equipment. Anyway, we had to stay in the pickup so the doors
wouldn't get blown off in the 50-mph wind gusts. It seems that the
harvest ants and the horned toads are the only animals that
survive well in this harsh climate. The down-sloping winds really
own this land and the humor is all the ways the landlord collects
the rent from the farmer."
The poem is included in David's
book,
Tangled Up in the West.
Read more about him and about the book along with his poem.
Posted 8/4
Georgia poet
Pat Stephenson
offers the next poems in her "Just Another Day" series, in
Just Another Day IX and
Just Another Day X. Pat
tells us that the series, which begins in the days of the settling
of the West, will eventually move into the present day.
Pat is involved with the
Booth Western Art Museum,
and another of her poems,
Portrait of a Balladeer,
is about Booth cowboy gathering organizer, musician, songwriter and
poet Doc Stovall. An accomplished
artist, Pat also painted a portrait of Doc Stovall, which you can
see along with "Portrait of a Balladeer."
Posted 8/5
Your support is essential to CowboyPoetry.com.
Be an important part of CowboyPoetry.com, Cowboy Poetry Week,
the
Rural Library Project, and all of
the activities of the Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Receive the
Cowboy Poetry Week poster,
available exclusively to supporters,
and
other benefits.
Please consider a
contribution in support of CowboyPoetry.com and the
Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Contributions from people like you make possible this site, Cowboy
Poetry Week, the Rural Library Project, and the Center's other
programs.
Read some
of our supporters' comments
here,
visit the Wall of Support, and
join in
and be an important part of it all!
Poems for the week of July 26:
Carlos Ashley
was an important inspiration and friend to
Baxter
Black and Red Steagall.
Baxter Black, who began his own writing career as a songwriter,
has said he was about 30 before he knew anything about cowboy poetry. He
tells that Red Steagall introduced him to the work of Carlos Ashley, and
Ashley's "Epilogue" changed his writing life.
One of his best-known poems is
That Spotted Sow or the Battle of
Cedar Mountain:
Did you ever hear the
story
Of that famous hog of mine?
She’s a razorback and spotted
Black and white from hoof to spine;
With a snout made outa granite,
She can root just like a plow;
And the fence ain’t been invented
That can turn that spotted sow.
....
With the kind permissions and generous
assistance of Carlos Ashley's daughter, Adele Waide, and his son, Carlos Ashley Jr.,
we're pleased to have photographs and other selections of Carlos
Ashley's poetry from his
popular book,
That Spotted Sow and Other Texas
Hill Country Ballads,
including Aunt Cordie,
Ole Edgar Martin,
and
Bob Sears' Chili Joint.
Ashley, a
fourth-generation Texas Hill Country rancher, served as Texas Poet
Laureate, 1949-1951. He performed his poems at the third annual
National
Cowboy Poetry Gathering in 1988. The next year he was a part of
the first National Cowboy Symposium
and Celebration with Baxter Black and Red Steagall, and he
appeared on Johnny Carson's NBC Tonight Show with Baxter Black.
In 1992, he received the American Cowboy Culture Award from the
National Cowboy Symposium and Celebration.
Read more about Carlos Ashley in our feature
here, which also includes excerpts from
and information about his books, and comments from Red Steagall and Baxter
Black.
Posted 7/26
A
contemporary poem from the archive...
Like Carlos Ashley,
Linda Kirkpatrick
hails from the Texas Hill Country. She shares a bittersweet
Picture the West entry this week, about the Hill
Country ranch house where she grew up. She comments that one of the photos is
the setting for lines in her poem, When Round-up Time
Comes Round:
....
The gray gelding snorts and paws the ground,
Then tosses his head in the air,
The bay in the corner trots round the pen,
They call her the Mustang Mare.
....
Linda Kirkpatrick writes
a regular
Somewhere
in the West
column at
Texas Escapes,
an online magazine of Texas travel and history, and she has a
separate blog by the same name
here.
"When Round-up Time Comes Round" is on first edition of
The BAR-D Roundup.
On the 2010 CD,
The BAR-D Roundup Volume Five,
Linda Kirkpatrick recites Bruce Kiskaddon's "The
Creak of the Leather."
Her most recent CD is
Beneath a Western Sky.
Read more about Linda Kirkpatrick and more of her poetry in our
feature here.
[2008 photo by Jeri
L. Dobrowski; see her gallery of western performers and others
here.]
Posted 7/26
A couple of weeks ago, we had
British
Columbia cowboy and poet
Mike Puhallo's
four-part piece,
Making a Cow Horse. That series ended with
a painful wreck. Now we have Mike's next two "Meadow Muffins,"
about the aftermath, Considering a Change:
...that idea of writing fiction,
Is looking better all the time.
It might be a tad less painful,
Than living every line!
and
Stir Crazy:
....
I was born a restless soul,
A leaf upon the ocean.
From dawn to dusk, as a general rule,
If I’m conscious, I’m in motion
.....
Mike writes weekly "Meadow Muffins,"
which are syndicated in a number
of publications and also available
at the
BCCHS Cowboy
Poets' Page
and at
Cowboylife.com.
Read
the poems, more of Mike's poetry and more
about him in our feature here and visit his web
site:
www.mikepuhallo.com.
Posted 7/27
Colorado
cowboy
poet, songwriter and musician
Al "Doc" Mehl
shares his quirky humor in his poem,
Graduation:
....
’Twas just a little prairie town,
And so the kids from all around
Would have to all take school together, I’m afraid.
And since that county’s population
Wasn’t bent on procreation,
We would number just a couple in each grade.
...
Al writes, "I had been giving some thought about writing a poem
on the topic of a one-room schoolhouse after visiting an old
schoolhouse in Nebraska with cowboy and poet Marty Blocker. (Marty
even showed me where his own name had been carved into the wood
trim around the blackboard about 150 years ago, or so he
claimed.)..." Read more along with his poem, and see a photo of
the Nebraska schoolhouse. "Graduation" is
included in the Summer, 2010
Rattle
poetry journal, in a special "Tribute
to Humor." One of Al's poems was also
chosen for the Winter,
2008
Rattle
issue that celebrated "the poetry of the Western range" with works
by 24 cowboy and Western poets. Read about that issue
here
at the
Rattle
web site.In his "other life," Al
recently returned from
Ghana, Africa where he was
participating in a humanitarian medical mission. Read more about
that here.
Posted 7/27
Welcome Utah
singer, songwriter, and cowboy poet
Chris Mortensen
and his song, See Him See It:
It was Friday night at the
Little Buckaroo rodeo
He sat behind the chutes and
waited for his turn to go
And when that sheep exploded
from the gate, the boy held on
He rode him for the full eight
seconds and later learned he'd won
....
Chris told us, "The
inspiration for this song came at a local kid's rodeo, where my
oldest grandson, Ethan, then 6, won the mutton bustin'
competition. My father had passed away shortly prior to this
event. I told my wife I wished he could have been there to see it.
She replied that she wished she could see his face as he
watched..."
Chris does solo gigs
at cowboy gatherings, performs in a duo, Saddle Serenade, and
plays bass in a local Celtic band, Cuhulain.
Read more about him along with his song.
Posted 7/28
Australian balladeer and bush poet
Merv Webster shares the
lyrics to his song, If the
Memories Last:
I recall that I’d met him some years ago
now
in this pub called the Wellshot out
Ilfracombe way.
He had spent all his life in a saddle,
he claimed,
pushing cattle down routes for a
pittance of pay.
....
Merv told us:
A little while back we performed our show, Bush Poetry Ballads
and Yarns, out at Gem Fest in Central Western Queensland. While
out that way we went further west to Barcaldine and Longreach to
catch up with some old friends. Some years back we used to work
out in this area through the winter months and used to perform
our show at the Homestead Caravan Park. Many of the Southerners
migrate North during the Winter months and look for
entertainment on their way through.
Ilfracombe is a little bush town on the Eastern side of
Longreach, where the Stockman's Hall of fame is situated, and
from time to time we performed at the Wellshot Hotel situated in
Ilfracombe. I used to love the back bar as it was made out of
old Wool Presses and the seats were old saddles mounted on steel
pipe to the floor. Sadly, when we called in recently we found
that the old saddle seats were gone and felt a little
melancholy. It inspired the lyrics to "If the Memories Last."
Read more about Merv along with his song, and visit Merv Webster's
web site for more.
Posted 7/29
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and
other benefits.
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Poetry Week, the Rural Library Project, and the Center's other
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Poems for the week of July 19:
Scotsman Will Ogilvie (1869-1963) lived in Australia for a dozen
years, where he became a top station hand, drover, and horse breaker. His
poems Hooves of the Horses:
The hoofs of the horses!—Oh! witching and sweet
Is the music earth steals from the iron-shod feet;
No whisper of lover, no trilling of bird
Can stir me as hoofs of the horses have stirred.
....
and
The Pearl of Them All:
Gaily in front of the stockwhip
The horses come galloping home,
Leaping and bucking and playing
With sides all a lather of foam;
But painfully, slowly behind them,
With head to the crack of the fall,
And trying so gamely to follow
Comes limping the pearl of them all.
....
are among his most-often recited works at gatherings in North America.
"Hooves of the Horses" appears as "Hoofs of the Horses" in
Ogilvie's 1922 book, Galloping Shoes (see that version
here at the BAR-D).
Wylie Gustafson set the
poem to music, and the song appears on
Wylie & the
Wild West's
Hooves of the Horses CD. Top reciter Randy Rieman includes the poem on his
Where the Ponies Come to Drink CD and his recitation appears on the
compilation,
Elko! A Cowboy's Gathering. California poet
Susan Parker recites the poem on her
2007 CD, She Rode a Wild Horse.
Ogilvie was a popular writer who contributed to the
Bulletin—the paper that published poets and writers including
Banjo Paterson,
Henry Lawson,
Harry "Breaker" Morant
(Ogilvie's close friend), and others—even after his return to Scotland.
Ogilvie published a number of collections of his poetry.
His best-selling Fair Girls and Gray Horses, with other verses, was
reviewed in the Scotsman newspaper, with the comment, "Its
verses draw their natural inspiration from the camp, the cattle trail, and
the bush; and their most characteristic and compelling rhythms from the
clatter of horses' hoofs." He also wrote often about dogs and hunting.
Other poetry collections include Saddle for a Throne, The
Australian and other verses, Scattered Scarlet, Over the Grass,
Hearts of Gold, and other verses; and the books Life in the Open,
and Kelpies.
Ogilvie's son, George, wrote about his father in
Balladist of Borders & Bush, and John Meredith wrote a book about
Ogilvie, Breaker's mate: Will Ogilvie in Australia.
Posted 7/19
A
contemporary poem from the archive...
Nevada writer and poet
Hal Swift
was one of the earliest poets at the BAR-D, and he wrote a poem in 2001 that
remains relevant today, Tortoises, Mustangs, an'
Cows:
....
I'm hopin' that someday they'll figure it out
That cattle with no place t'roam
Is food that the public won't see at the store
An' steak that they'll never take home
Hal recites Charles Badger Clark Jr.'s
Jeff Hart on
The BAR-D Roundup: Volume Five and James Barton Adams' classic,
Bill's in Trouble, on
The BAR-D Roundup: Volume Three.Hal has six poetry CDs, some of which include what he calls his "heritage
poetry," and a collection of poetry, currently out of print. He has a
forthcoming Western novel.
He wrote a regular
column,
A Brush with an Old Sage, for the
Nevada Observer for
some years; all
of his columns are archived
here at the Nevada Observer.
Hal lives in Sparks, Nevada with his wife of 58 years, Carol. Read more
about Hal and some of his poetry
here
at the BAR-D.
Posted 7/19
Florida cowboy
Doyle James Rigdon
tells the story of The Mugger.
Doyle says that the inspiration came from the experience of a
new man who had hired on "....who
had been raised on a cattle ranch in Venezuela, but educated in
America. He was unfamiliar with certain terms commonly used, and
on his first time gathering with the crew, was instructed to go to
the deadman in the fence, and wait there until he saw the other
men sweep across the pasture and then he was to fall into line. He
did not know that a 'deadman' is a pull post with an anchor, in
lieu of an H brace. He was hunting all over for a tombstone! I
then got to thinking of all the other terms we use, some which are
peculiar to Florida ranching vernacular, and thought it'd be a fun
way to showcase one more difference between us and cowboys from
other regions...."
Read more along with his poem.
Doyle was among the Florida cowboy poets, storytellers, artists, and gear
makers who were featured at the
Western Folklife
Center's 2010 National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. See
Susan Parker's report from the event, "East
Meets West,"
here.
[2010 photo of Doyle James
Rigdon by Jeri
L. Dobrowski; see her gallery of western performers and others
here.]
Posted 7/20
Alberta rancher
Ron Gale
shares his poem, The Coyotey Den.
Ron told us, "Back in the forties I worked for the V-bar-V ranch in
southern Alberta and also for Bill Hunt, whose ranch adjoined the V-V. This
little episode happened when I was caught out in the open miles from any
protection."
See Ron's accompanying illustration and read more about Ron along with his
poem.
Posted 7/21
Our
twenty-second
Art Spur
piece, offered to "spur"
poets' imaginations—in
celebration of the National Day of the Cowboy—is
"She's
a Hand," a painting by notable Western artist
Joelle Smith
(1958-2005). The painting was inspired by Oregon cowgirl Mindy
Kershner's participation in the
Jordan Valley Big Loop Rodeo.
"She's a Hand" was the image selected
for the 2009 "Cowboy Keeper Award" from the National Day of the
Cowboy organization. Director Bethany Braley tells that Joelle
Smith's work inspired the award, which is given to "organizations
and individuals who have made a significant contribution to the
preservation of Western heritage."
Joelle Smith's painting, "Heading
Home," was the official poster for
Cowboy Poetry
Week, 2006; the cover art for the first volume of
The
BAR-D Roundup; and an
Art Spur
subject.
Find more about Joelle Smith and her work in our feature
here. See our National Day of the
Cowboy feature here.
Enjoy the selected poems
here
by (alphabetically):
Ken Cook
Bette
Wolf Duncan
Yvonne
Hollenbeck
Slim
McNaught
Susan
Matley
Al
"Doc" Mehl
Cade
Schalla
Posted
7/22
Your support is essential to CowboyPoetry.com.
Be an important part of CowboyPoetry.com, Cowboy Poetry Week,
the
Rural Library Project, and all of
the activities of the Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Receive the
Cowboy Poetry Week poster,
available exclusively to supporters,
and
other benefits.
Please consider a
contribution in support of CowboyPoetry.com and the
Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Contributions from people like you make possible this site, Cowboy
Poetry Week, the Rural Library Project, and the Center's other
programs.
Read some
of our supporters' comments
here,
visit the Wall of Support, and
join in
and be an important part of it all!
Poems for the week of July 12:
Bruce Kiskaddon's
(1878-1950) poem, "The Quitter," was printed in the
Los Angeles Union Stock Yards calendar in 1936:
You find a big calf that the roundup has missed.
You shake out your rope with a whirl and a twist.
You dab the loop on as you come alongside,
And figger to run the old brand on his hide.
....
See larger images of the front and back of the 1936
calendar here.
Kiskaddon had hundreds of poems printed in the Western
Livestock Journal and the Los Angeles Union Stock Yards calendars.
Bill Siems' impressive book,
Open Range; Collected Poems of Bruce
Kiskaddon,
includes all of those poems, along with extensive background
information about the publications. The book notes that "The Quitter"
appeared also in the Western Livestock Journal in April, 1936.
See our feature about Open Range and the complete table of
contents
here.
The Los Angeles Union Stock Yards,
built in 1923, became the largest stock yards in the West. The Global
Road Trips site has information and photographs
here. There
are photos from the California Historical Society in the
University of Southern California Digital Archives: the stock
yards under construction, a 1929 panoramic view, a 1940 aerial view,
the offices, and a 1940 photo of a monument unveiling. The stock yards
were closed in 1958.
"The Quitter" is
illustrated with a drawing by Katherine Field. Bill Siems, in his introduction
to Shorty's Yarns
(Kiskaddon's collected short stories) comments, "One of the reasons that Kiskaddon's poems
have been remembered when the stories have not, why they were clipped from the
Western Livestock Journal and pasted in ranch family albums or saved
from the monthly calendars published by the Los Angeles Union Stockyards, is
that many of the poems are beautifully illustrated with line drawings created
in ink by Katherine Field. ..." Field and Kiskaddon collaborated for
twenty years; they never met face-to-face. Read the entire introduction in our
feature here.
Posted 7/12
A
contemporary poem from the archive...
Deanna Dickinson McCall
sets a branding scene that carries the weight of time in
Hot Iron:
Ropes and wood fire, total chaos
abounds
Amid choking dust and deafening bawls
The call of "hot iron" clearly sounds
....
Deanna
is a
fifth-generation rancher; she was raised in the northern California foothills.
She spent 22 years ranching and raising her family on a remote Nevada ranch and
currently ranches in New Mexico.
She has been featured at the
National
Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada, the
Arizona
Cowboy Poets Gathering in Prescott, and at other gatherings and events
throughout the West. Her poetry is included in the anthologies
Cowgirl
Poetry and Cowboy Poetry: The Reunion.
"Hot Iron" appears on the first edition
of The BAR-D Roundup, and her poem, "Advice," is
on The BAR-D Roundup: Volume Three. The cover
of the Volume Three CD is a photograph of Deanna McCall's grandfather, Perry Preston ("P.P.") Dickinson, circa 1912,
a Texas cowboy. Read more about him and see the original photo
here in a Picture the West entry.
[photo of Deanna McCall by
Kevin Martini-Fuller]
Posted 7/12
Nevada poet
Daniel Bybee
shares his poem, The Cottonwood
Branding.
He comments,
"This
poem has been a work in progress for about five years. During that time I have
been to Cottonwood, California for this branding three times. After each
branding I have come home and revised this poem. This year I after I got home,
it all seemed to come together because we had some new people and some new
experiences. A day of hard work followed by an evening of celebration. Family,
friends and neighbors getting together to help brand spring calves is
a classic tradition in ranching. I don't think it's importance to the ranching
way of live can be over emphasized."
Daniel Bybee shared an account of the
branding and additional photos in this week's Picture
the West.
Posted 7/12
Welcome Oklahoma writer and poet
Sherrilyn Polf and her poem,
Winter's End. Sherrilyn grew up on a Kansas farm. She writes, "Most
of my growing up years were on the farm learning responsibilities as well as
the love for open prairie-type pastures, nature and animals that only can come
from a close family and not-so-close neighbors."
Sherrilyn also has a recent novel, the first part of a trilogy,
A Matter of Trust, Engineers of Flight, Book 1.
Read more along with her poem. Posted 7/13
Mid-week may be a good time for some levity as
delivered by Utah poet
Dale Major's poem,
Reptile Dysfunction.
Dale told us, "I guess this poem is a product of a
long winter feeding cows, without much else to do." Read more along with his poem.
Dale is from Avon, Utah, which he says, "... is
south of Paradise, and north of Eden!." He tells, "We raise club
calves, horses and children, not necessarily in that order. We
enjoy moving our cattle horseback and winter feeding with horses.
We do an annual horse ride from our home in Avon, Utah to the
children's grandparents' ranch in Lyman, Wyoming, a 3-day ride of
106 miles. A child must be at least 3 years old to go on this
ride. We enjoy performing cowboy music and poetry."
Posted 7/14
Oregon poet and sheepman
Tom Nichols
shares his poem, Don's Kill Sheet.
He comments, "The poem is drawn from of a lifetime of
sheepmen's stories and doesn't represent an actual load of lambs. I submit
it with some apprehension and hope that in this day of political
correctness, animal welfare and such that it doesn't cause a break in the
lamb market."
Tom's bio tells, "Always too poor to raise many cattle and too
proud to raise goats, I have made my living with sheep for the past twenty
years. I have a town job as manager of Oregon State University’s Sheep
Research Unit. My evenings and weekends are spent helping my wife with our
own sheep which we run on leased permanent pastures and Willamette Valley
grass seed fields..."
Tom has shared a number of interesting
Picture the West entries.
Read more about Tom Nichols and more of his poetry along
with his poem.
Posted 7/15
Your support is essential to CowboyPoetry.com.
Be an important part of CowboyPoetry.com, Cowboy Poetry Week,
the
Rural Library Project, and all of
the activities of the Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Receive the
Cowboy Poetry Week poster,
available exclusively to supporters,
and
other benefits.
Please consider a
contribution in support of CowboyPoetry.com and the
Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Contributions from people like you make possible this site, Cowboy
Poetry Week, the Rural Library Project, and the Center's other
programs.
Read some
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here,
visit the Wall of Support, and
join in
and be an important part of it all!
Poems for the week of July 5:
Prescott, Arizona just wrapped up its 123rd
annual rodeo, billed as "the world's oldest." Read about its
history
here.
Sharlot Hall
(1870-1943) wrote about one of the rodeo's traditions in
Old Cow Men's Parade:
....
Two hundred cow men riding,
Dressed out for holiday;
Ten-gallon hats and fancy shirts
And 'kerchiefs bright and gay.
Two hundred horses prancing
As the riders whoop and yell;
And jingle of spurs and bridle chains
The noise and music swell.
....
Sharlot Hall names many ranchers and cowboys in the poem. Frequently, audiences at the
Arizona Cowboy Poets
Gathering are treated to Tom Weathers' recitation of
this poem. Families
of many of those mentioned in the poem still live in the
Prescott area today. The next Arizona Cowboy Poets Gathering
takes place August 13-14, 2010.
Sharlot Mabridth Hall
arrived in the Arizona Territory with her parents, as a
young girl. She wrote about those early days and
continued to document her life and the stories and histories of
Arizona. She wrote essays, short stories, articles, and poetry. Fiercely independent,
she was
the first Arizona woman to hold public office, serving as Territorial
Historian of Arizona. In 1924, shortly after women won the right to
vote, she was selected to take the state's vote to Washington, D. C.
Read more about her and more of her poetry in our feature
here.
Posted 7/6
A contemporary song from the archives...
Respected balladeer
Don Edwards
and top poet, reciter, horseman, rancher, and National Endowment
for the Arts Fellow
Joel Nelson
collaborated on an outstanding song,
Here's Looking at You:
....
It was a poor way to make a living
And you threatened to quit—but then
When the herd bedded down at the shank of evenin’
You knew you’d do it over ag’in
Through the thick and the thin
You’d do it ag’in
....
The song is on Don Edwards'
Saddle Songs II, Last of the Troubadours.
Joel Nelson says that the work emerged as a song, not a poem. When
Joel first told him about it, Don was surprised. He admits he was thinking “A song? Joel’s a
poet,” and before he knew it, Joel had another surprise: he pulled
out his guitar. Don says, “I’ve known Joel for twenty-five years, and
I didn’t know he played the guitar.” His expectations weren’t high,
but he
went from skeptic to believer quickly.
What followed was what Don describes as
a song of “marvelous purity, akin to the works of Don Hedgpeth, JB
Allen, Badger Clark, Bruce Kiskaddon,” writers able to make words with
“a hundred years wrapped into now.” Don says that he couldn’t get the
song out of his mind, and he soon was in touch with Joel to talk about
working with the song, saying that he didn’t want to do anything to
take away from the near-perfect words. Don's skillful arrangement
makes it impossible to imagine any other tune working with the
inspired lyrics.
Joel says that he began working on the
song right after the Western Folklife Center’s National Cowboy Poetry
Gathering in Elko, Nevada in 2001. He said that “As often happens, I
leave Elko full of inspiration. It is the catalyst that makes
inspiration come into fruition.” He says that he wanted to pay
tribute to and to recognize writers such as Charlie Siringo, Andy
Adams, “Teddy Blue” Abbott, and Larry McMurtry.
The last lines of the song (shown above) were inspired
by the passage by T. K. Whipple that introduces Larry McMurtry’s
Lonesome Dove, “All America lies at the end of the wilderness
road, and our past is not a dead past, but still lives in us. Our
forefathers had civilization inside themselves, the wild outside. We
live in the civilization they created, but within us the wilderness
still lingers. What they dreamed, we live, and what they lived, we
dream.”
This song was the subject of a "Before the Song" column from the
BAR-D, which you can read here.
Find more about Don Edwards in our feature
here and at
www.donedwardsmusic.com. Find more about Joel Nelson in our
feature here.
[photo of Don Edwards and Smoky by Lori Faith Merritt,
www.photographybyfaith.com;
photo of Joel Nelson by Kevin Martini-Fuller,
www.kevinmartinifuller.com.
Posted 7/6
David Carlton
shares his poem about the challenges of the
cowboy life, Gates.
He told
us it was inspired by a dream. Read more about that along with his
poem.
David was
raised in Florida, a descendant of seven generations of Florida
ranchers. He shared some photos and history previously in
Picture the West.
He currently lives in Texas and works at Texas A&M.
Posted 7/7
Texan
Jeremy Sigle
has a poem from the arena,
Under the Horns.
Jeremy
preaches in a small town near Lubbock. Read more about him along with
his poem.
Posted 7/7
Regular BAR-D visitors know that
British
Columbia cowboy and poet
Mike Puhallo writes weekly "Meadow Muffins,"
which are syndicated in a number
of publications and also available
at the
BCCHS Cowboy
Poets' Page
and at
Cowboylife.com.
For the last
month, Mike has been writing a four-part piece,
Making a Cow Horse.
We are pleased to
present all four pieces together, including the last one, of which
Mike says, "This really was not the ending I wanted to write for this
series..." We'll let you read the whole story along with the poems
here.
It's been a tough
few months for Puhallos. Mike's rancher brother, Gordon,
broke his pelvis in a horse wreck (and it was about twelve hours
before he was found by a neighboring rancher). But Mike says there is
also good news, "My nephew Alan Puhallo just won the Wild Horse Race
at the Williams Lake Stampede this past weekend; his team is in the
lead for the Canadian Championship heading into Calgary."
Read more of Mike's poetry and more
about him in our feature here and visit his web
site:
www.mikepuhallo.com.
Posted 7/8
Tex Tumbleweed
has been at the BAR-D since about Day 1, when
guidelines were broader. Tex prefers to write about trail driving
days, but found a way to way to color inside the lines with
The Fork in the Road.
Read more poetry and about Tex
here.
Posted 7/8
Your support is essential to CowboyPoetry.com.
Be an important part of CowboyPoetry.com,
Cowboy Poetry Week, the
Rural Library Project, and all of
the activities of the Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Receive the
Cowboy Poetry Week poster,
available exclusively to supporters,
and
other benefits.
Please consider a
contribution in support of CowboyPoetry.com and the
Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Contributions from people like you make possible this site, Cowboy
Poetry Week, the Rural Library Project, and the Center's other
programs.
Read some
of our supporters' comments
here,
visit the Wall of Support, and
join in
and be an important part of it all!
Poems for the week of June 28:
 The poems of
Henry Herbert Knibbs
(1874-1945) are frequently recited at gatherings and events. Though
Knibbs had no cowboying or ranching
experience, he was a serious student of literature and the West and
was as respected by other Western writers of his time as he is by
contemporary writers, readers, and listeners.
His poem,
Boomer
Johnson, is one of the classics of humorous
cowboy poetry:
Now Mr. Boomer
Johnson was a gettin' old in spots,
But you don't expect a bad man to go wrastlin' pans and pots;
But he'd done his share of killin' and his draw was gettin' slow,
So he quits a-punchin' cattle and he takes to punchin' dough.
Our foreman up and hires him, figurin' age had rode him tame,
But a snake don't get no sweeter just by changin' of its name.
Well, Old Boomer knowed his business—he could cook to make you
smile,
But say, he wrangled fodder in a most peculiar style.
....
The poem is included in Knibbs' 1930 book,
Songs
of the Lost Frontier. Poet, reciter, and songwriter
Andy Hedges recorded the poem on his
Days and Nights in the Saddle CD, and that recording is
on the first edition of
The BAR-D Roundup.
Posted 6/28
A contemporary poem from the archives...
Utah writer and
poet Rod Miller
draws a stark picture in Gone to Town:
....
Horses live in boxes
locked away and bound,
turning nervous circles.
Cattle won’t be found.
....
Rod Miller's essays about cowboy poetry are valuable
resources, and we're pleased to have many of them here at the BAR-D,
including:
"Free Range and Barbwire,"
"Have
You Heard the One About ..."
"Fine Lines and Wrinkles"
"You Call THAT a Poem?"
"Are You All Talk and No Trochaic Tetrameter?"
"Does Slant Rhyme with
Can't?"
"Five Ways Cowboy Poetry Fades in the
Footlights"
"The Rhythm Method"
"Whipping
Up a Poem"
"A
Brief Introduction to Cowboy Poetry, or, Who's the Guy in the Big
Hat and What is He Talking About?"
More than eighty of Rod's poems have appeared in
print since he penned his first in 1997, in magazines including
Western Horseman,
American Cowboy,
Range, and Cowboy. In addition to poetry,
Rod has published essays, articles, short stories, and a well-received novel.
Rod Miller's latest non-fiction book,
Massacre at Bear River: First, Worst, Forgotten,
the history of an 1863 event, was published in 2008 by Caxton
Press. Read more about the book here
in our feature about Rod Miller.
Rod Miller, among the Lariat Laureates at
CowboyPoetry.com, recites his poem, "The Staff of Life,"
on
The BAR-D Roundup:
Volume Four.
Read more about Rod Miller and more of his poetry
in our feature here.
Posted 6/28
Jo Lee T Riley
writes about a cow on the fight in
The Braymer Affair.
She told us, "...Bill,
my husband Tom, and I were all working for Lark Ranches at Powell
Butte, Oregon... The cow in this poem was a wild, independent
creature that gave us all fits for several years until Bill got
even with her. .." Read more along with her poem.
Jo Lee T Riley says "I've
never been without a horse or a cow since I was born."
Posted 6/29
 We're pleased to feature the work of top
cowboy, cowboy poet, songwriter, and yodeler
Gary McMahan (he
sometimes adds "general nuisance" to those descriptors). He says, "Like horse manure, I've
been all over the West, first with my Dad as he hauled cattle from
Montana and the Dakotas to Texas and all points in between, then
as a cowboy, and finally as an entertainer."Gary shared
poems and the lyrics to
The Ol'
Double Diamond, his modern classic
which has been recorded by Chris LeDoux, Ian Tyson, and dozens of
other artists—a song familiar to anyone who knows cowboy music.
Another well known piece by Gary
and expressive of his more, let's say, "out there" side, is
The Two
Things in Life (That I Really Love). The poem, which inspired Garth Brooks'
"A Cowgirl's Saddle," is one of the most frequent subjects of questions to
Who Knows? As for more samples of "out
there" works by Gary, you can find "Beer Can Bob" elsewhere and his poem to
Ralph Lauren, "Chaps," on his newest CD,
Goin' My Way.
His poem,
A Cowboy'in
Day, is a
pure
cowboy poem. About it, he
writes, "One of my favorite things is working cattle on a good
horse in the high country. I used to do a considerable amount of
it, and even though this poem doesn't have a 'Hollywood plot,' a
lot of ranch folk have told me how much they like it, especially
those who've ever run a bunch of yearlin's."
Gary also shared a
poem he feels is timely today, a true story set in the Depression
era, The Best
Cowboys Ain’t Always Human.
Gary has a great web site,
www.singingcowboy.com,
which has full-length tracks from his newest CD and earlier
releases.
Find much more in our feature
here.
Posted 6/30
Arkansas poet
Gail T. Burton
shares a tale from Western history, The
Headless Horseman.
Gail tells, "Soon after the Mexican War (1846-48)
a rider without a head was reported to be ranging in the great
mustang country along the Nueces River in Southwest Texas. The
circumstances of this rider was outlined by J. Frank Dobie as 'The
Headless Horseman of the Mustangs' in his book,
Tales of Old-Time Texas
(1928) and also referred to by Mayne Reid in his book,
A Strange Tale of Texas
(1886)."
This poem is also included in our list of
Halloween poems.
Read about Gail and find more of his poetry along with his poem.
Posted 6/30
Texas poet
Janet Eggleston
shares her poem, The Other
Mother.
She told us, "This poem
started out as a Mother's Day poem, and then it turned into a
horse poem, and then a 'mother horse' poem. Now I just dedicate it
to all mothers everywhere...both the two-legged and
four-legged ones..."
Janet grew up in the
Oklahoma Panhandle where her family had a cow-calf operation. Today she's
a fourth grade teacher in Amarillo.
Read more about Janet and
read more of her poetry along with her poem.
Posted 7/1
July 1 is
Canada Day, a national holiday
celebrating Canada's "birthday." Here are two fitting poems from
two top Canadian poets:
Alberta's
Doris Daley
writes about The Great
Canadian Cowboy (generously shared for this year's Canada
Day):
....
Across this land you'll see his brand, and there's
nowhere he'd rather be
Than raising Canadian cattle in the True North strong and
free.
And last year, British Columbia's
Mike Puhallo
wrote about the celebration in Canada
Day, 2009:
....
Happy Birthday Canada,
Fly the Maple Leaf unfurled
Keep the candles burning bright,
As a beacon to the world!
Posted 7/1
July 4 is
America's birthday,
Independence Day
(and "Cowboy Christmas").
Our feature
here
has contemporary poems and songs, and additional links.
Find songs from:
 DW Groethe,
That
Ol' Red, White and Blue :
....
Every day’s the Fourth of July
For that ol’ red, white and blue.
A tie that binds, a spirit that shines
And it shines the whole year through.
And every little thing she stands for
Really stands for me and you
....
 RW Hampton,
For the Freedom
And poems by:
 Chris Isaacs,
Michael Bia
Yvonne Hollenbeck,
The Flag Out at the Ranch
 Rod Nichols ,
Cowboy 4th of July and
Cutter
Bill's 4th of July
 Hal Swift,
Anvil Chorus
and
Phylo
Jenks's Bath
Bette Wolf
Duncan,
The Red Lodge Rodeo
Photo by Jeri L. Dobrowski
more here
Here's wishing all
a safe and happy Fourth!
[photo of DW Groethe
Jeri L. Dobrowski;
photo of Hal Swift by Johnny Gunn]
Posted 7/1
Poems for the week of June 21:
Poet
Rhoda Sivell
(1874-1962) lived in Canada and published a collection of poems,
Voices from
the Range, in 1911, which was reissued in several editions. Some
of those editions include illustrations by Frederic Remington and Charles
M. Russell. The covers of some editions display a Remington image.
Rhoda Sivell's only other known publication was a small booklet with the
poem, Medicine Hat (Sunny
Alberta). Though written a hundred years ago, the poem's theme
of the loss of rangeland remains relevant:
....
I remember her thousands of cattle
Range over a thousand hills,
And her sweet blessed river shining,
And her June rain that never chills;
I remember her wild plains stretching
Hundreds of miles away
With no fences or Russian thistles,
And miles of blue-joint hay.
....
Later in the poem, these lines
appear (with her punctuation as below):
....
And out in the far off
coulees
Where the wolf-dogs used to roam
They'll DRILL FOR OIL AND GET IT
Down by the old range home.
....
Copies of the booklet are rare. Just
one known copy is in a library in the U.S. (at Brown University). William
Sivell, Rhoda Sivell's grandson, led us to a digitized copy
here in a PDF file
at Library and Archives of Canada.
Rhoda Sivell ranched in
the Medicine Hat area. The
Esplanade
Archives in Medicine Hat, Alberta, has digitized a recording of
Rhoda Sivell telling about her life, which you can listen to
here.
Montana poet and songwriter
Almeda Terry
recent put the work of Rhoda Sivell to music in her recent CD,
Voices from the Range.
We've been researching Rhonda Sivell's
life and publications, and her grandson,
William Sivell, has shared information and photographs and granted
permissions. Rhoda Sivell's work remains protected by Canadian copyright
until 2013.
Read more about Rhoda Sivell and more of her poetry in our feature here.
Posted 6/21
A contemporary poem from the archives...
Rancher, poet, writer, and editor
Linda Hasselstom
takes on the "romance of ranching" in
Rancher Roulette:
It's no trick to get killed
ranching.
You might get a foot caught
in a stirrup when your horse bucks, get dragged
to death; that's what happened to my half brother.
He was riding that ridge to the south there;
his wife found him, after the storm.
....
The author and editor of many books about the West and its
people, her most recent book is a collection of essays,
No Place Like Home: Notes from a Western Life
(University
of Nevada Press). The book was just nominated for a
High Plains Book Award.
Find an announcement in our
Books of Western Interest. Read Linda Hasselstrom's comments
about the book and more
here at her web site.
Linda Hasselstrom has been teaching writing for more than 40
years. She offers "writing conversations" by email and offers
writing retreats at her South Dakota ranch. Read more in our
feature here and at
www.windbreakhouse.com.
Read more of her poetry and more about her in our feature
here.
Posted 6/21
Jessica Hedges
shares her poem,
History in the Barn.
She
told us about its inspiration, "The ranch I grew up on was started in
the 1800s. It has an amazing barn that I grew up working and playing in as
a kid. I always had the feeling that something special happened there but
to this day I don't know of any specific event."
The poem is the title poem on
Jessica Hedges' recent CD,
History in the Barn.
Jessica Hedges grew up on a 450-thousand-acre cattle and hay
operation in northeastern Nevada, and now lives with her husband, Sam, in
Soap Lake, Washington on the ranch where he works.
Jessica will make her first invited appearance at
the Western Folklife Center's
27th National
Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada, January 24-29,
2011. Jessica often attended the gathering as she was growing up.
Read more about Jessica Hedges along with her poem.
Posted 6/22
Stuart Hooker
shares his poem, The Boss's
Saddle.
Stuart was raised on his family's ranch near Gila, New Mexico.
He comments, "'The Boss's Saddle' is very personal to me,
as I am still attempting to settle my part of our family ranch in
New Mexico with a family member. I have been working away from the
ranch during this prolonged attempt. It's easy to get 'wrapped up
in' the work, but once in a while I get to thinking of how it
should have been with us all working together like we used to.
Then, suddenly, something happens to pull me back into the reality
of my job and situation..."
Read more along with his poem.
Posted 6/23
Colorado's
Glenn Martin
shares his poem, Down at the Sale
Barn Cafe.
Glenn told us, "I used to hang around the sale barn as a kid and
run the alley, clean out trailers, etc. for money to go to the
cafe and buy a piece of pie. I fondly remember the old men there
and still enjoy seeing them when I now go to the sale barn."
Glenn was raised in the ranching country of
Eastern New Mexico, where he grew up working those ranches and
rodeoing.
Posted 6/24
Arizona's
Jack Burdette
shares his poem,
Jest Another Morning.
Jack says, "The inspiration for this poem came
upon reflecting on how much adventure and interaction with nature
that working cowboys experience on an every day basis to the
extent that it becomes almost routine and obscured in the work and
duties of the day. Most working cowboys will experience more
adventure and be exposed to more of nature's beauty in one morning
than some 'city folks' will experience in a lifetime, except in
their dreams and imaginations."
Jack's bio tells, "I
am a professional engineer who designs and builds steel mills.
However, my father was in the US Cavalry when they still rode
horses and
went on to compete on the rodeo circuit. He also worked as a cowboy and ran a
blacksmith shop with his dad. So, I guess I have some cowboy blood by
heredity."
Posted 6/24
Your support is essential to CowboyPoetry.com.
Be an important part of CowboyPoetry.com,
Cowboy Poetry Week, the
Rural Library Project, and all of
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Receive the
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available exclusively to supporters,
and
other benefits.
Please consider a
contribution in support of CowboyPoetry.com and the
Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Contributions from people like you make possible this site, Cowboy
Poetry Week, the Rural Library Project, and the Center's other
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here,
visit the Wall of Support, and
join in
and be an important part of it all!
Poems for the week of June 14:
Greg Scott's 2005 book,
Cowboy Poetry,
Classic Poems & Prose
by Badger Clark,
includes much new research about
Charles Badger Clark, Jr. (1883-1957)
and some never-before published works,
including To the Lady of South Pass
On Her Birthday Feb. 17, 1908:
When our mortal trail has led us
Far beyond the Land of Youth
And we try to hide our birthdays
Or, at least, conceal the truth
....
Greg writes about the poem, first written as a birthday poem to Badger
Clark's neighbor, Rita Langley: "Badger Clark used the first two verses
as Christmas verse to his Arizona friends in later years. The first two
verses stand alone nicely. The late Mason
Coggin [of Cowboy Miner Productions, the publisher of Greg's book]
and I visited the site of the the Langley's camp a couple of times.
There had and has been mining activity there for many years. Badger
enjoyed his visits with the Langleys. He told in a letter how they (the
Langleys) raised a turkey for Thanksgiving. At night they put the bird
under a heavy ore bucket to keep the coyotes from getting it."
Greg says the he found the entire poem in the archive of Badger Clark's
papers at Dakota Wesleyan in the Layne Library (now the McGovern
Library). He writes, "The archive had other material about the Langleys,
a letter home to his parents describing his new neighbors and their
turkey and later, their new baby. Badger worried in his letters and in
his story 'The Gloria Kids' that maybe he was hanging around too much
with them. When John Langley's sister came to visit, she caused much
disruption among the bachelors in the area. He wrote a poem about her,
too."
Cowboy Poetry, Classic Poems & Prose by Badger Clark
is now available directly from Greg Scott.
Find order
information
here.
Several Badger Clark poems are featured on The BAR-D Roundup: Volume 5.
The
special classic recording portion of the CD includes Badger Clark's
own
introduction to and recitation of his still-popular
poem, "A Cowboy's Prayer" from a 1956 recording.
Other Badger Clark poems on
T he BAR-D Roundup: Volume Five
are
recitations by Jerry Brooks ("The
Legend of Boastful Bill"), Randy Rieman
("The Married Man"), and Hal Swift
("Jeff Hart").
See our feature about Badger Clark
here and the special feature about Greg Scott's
Cowboy Poetry,
Classic Poems & Prose by Badger
Clark, a comprehensive
collection of the works of Badger
Clark, here.
[1906 photo of Badger Clark at his writing table is from
Cowboy
Poetry, Classic Poems & Prose by Badger Clark, edited by
Greg Scott and used with
permission; see our feature on that book here.]
Posted 6/14
A contemporary poem from the archive...
It's Flag Day, and a good day to revisit top South Dakota poet and ranch wife
Yvonne Hollenbeck's poem,
The Flag Out on the Ranch:
It was an old and faded flag but it was always
there,
for visitors to see it freely waving in the air.
He'd say "I always fly it every time I get a chance,
although I know it's odd to see it out here on this ranch."
....
Yvonne Hollenbeck is a frequent performer at gatherings
across the West. She returns to the
National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in 2011 for her eighth
invited appearance there. She was named Top Female Poet by the Western
Music Association (WMA) in 2006, 2007, and 2008 and received
the same honor from the Academy of Western Artists' (AWA) in
2005.
Yvonne is featured on
this year's
The BAR-D Roundup: Volume Five,
with her poem, "The Ranch Rig." The poem
is from the CD
Ranch Life 101
by the "Sweethearts in Carhartts" (Yvonne Hollenbeck,
Jean Prescott,
and Liz Masterson).
Her latest CD is
Sorting Time. The
collection has many of her newer, most-requested poems and a
couple of older favorites. The poems offer up her world with
humor and with her signature wry observations of ranch life,
cowboys, and the joys and challenges of marriage.
Read
more about Yvonne Hollenbeck and more of her poetry
in our feature
here.
Posted 6/14
The Yukon's
Alf Bilton tells us that his
poem, Tin-horn Tale Number 1001, is
"a bit of whimsy from wherever whimsy comes from":
....
See, he couldn't ride, an' he couldn't cull,
an' he'd never rolled a smoke;
He couldn't cuss, an' he couldn't cook,
an' he thought our work a joke.
....
Alf Bilton
has a
web
site with poetry, essays, his captivating cartoons, photos,
music, and more.
(Six years ago, a suggestion from Alf Bilton sparked the
idea for CowboyPoetry.com's annual compilation of classic and contemporary poems,
The BAR-D Roundup.)
Read more about Alf Bilton and more of
his poetry here at the BAR-D.
Posted 6/15
Arizona's
Willie P. Smith
shares his poem,
$1,500 OBO:
....
His mane was tangled, his tail was shaggy.
His back was swayed and his belly saggy.
A for sale sign was nailed to a pole.
"$1,500 OBO."
....
Willie told us, "My experience with a broke down horse (that
wasn't) is what inspired me to tell this tale. This horse sure was
a fooler. He looked like he was on his last legs. He proved he
wasn't when I got on him...I think we all want a good looking
horse. Sometimes some real good horses are passed by because they
don't meet the 'good looks' category. I am as guilty of this as
anyone. I almost passed by the best horse I ever owned because he
wasn't beautiful. He wasn't a bad looking horse but not the best
looking. I discovered his beauty came from inside."
Willie
is a member of the Yavapai Sheriff Search and Rescue, mounted
division. Read more about him along with his poem.
Posted 6/16
Welcome
Carol Quaintance
and her poem, Shades of Blue.
She told us her
poem about the relationship between a cowboy and his horse was
inspired by cowboy paintings. She writes, "Like a marriage, it
could start out bumpy, but then evolve into a special bond. Much
of the poem is based on observations as well as my own experiences
buying and breaking horses. A friend of mine was on his favorite
mount when it collapsed and died while crossing a river."
Carol
lives in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and works for
the
National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. She says, "...if I tell you what I
do, I'll have to kill you..."
Read more about Carol along with her
poem.
Posted 6/17
Father's's Day is celebrated Sunday,
June 20 in the U.S. and Canada.
British
Columbia cowboy and poet
Mike Puhallo brings up a
sweet memory of childhood in his
latest "Meadow Muffin," Father's
Day.
Mike's "Meadow Muffins" are syndicated in a number
of publications. You can also read Mike's weekly "Meadow Muffins"
at the
BCCHS Cowboy
Poets' Page
and at
Cowboylife.com.
Read more of Mike's poetry and more
about him in our feature here and visit his web
site:
www.mikepuhallo.com.
Posted 6/17
 Siblings
Sharon Brown and
Smoke Wade
share
words and photos in
a special
Father's Day tribute
to their father, Donald W. Fouste.
Smoke's daughter,
Christina Martin,
also shares two poems.
(Last month, Sharon and Smoke contributed a
Mother's Day tribute
to their mother,
Betty Jean Tippett.)
Smoke Wade, who has contributed many interesting
pieces to Picture
the West and Western Memories, writes
about his father in prose, "From Sheepherder to Cowboy—My
Dad," and in poetry, "Don's Song."
Sharon Brown remembers her father in poems,
"Memories of a Mermaid," "Hand on the Wheel," and "Vitalis Man."
Christina Martin shares two poems, "My Father's
Eden" and "Our Journey."
Vintage photos accompany the poems and prose.
See the special feature
here.
Donald W. Fouste
1920 - 1998
Find past years' Father's Day tributes (by
Jane Morton,
Linda Kirkpatrick,
Paul Kern,
and
Andy Nelson)
and more poems to fathers in the collection
here.
[photo of Smoke Wade by Jeri
L. Dobrowski; see her gallery of western performers and others
here.]
Posted 6/17
Your support is essential to CowboyPoetry.com.
Be an important part of CowboyPoetry.com,
Cowboy Poetry Week, the
Rural Library Project, and all of
the activities of the Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Receive the
Cowboy Poetry Week poster,
available exclusively to supporters,
and
other benefits.
Please consider a
contribution in support of CowboyPoetry.com and the
Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Contributions from people like you make possible this site, Cowboy
Poetry Week, the Rural Library Project, and the Center's other
programs.
Read some
of our supporters' comments
here,
visit the Wall of Support, and
join in
and be an important part of it all!
Poems for the week of June 7:
 Oklahoma rancher and poet
Jay Snider first introduced us to
The Good Old Cowboy Days:
My fancy drifts as
often, through the murky, misty maze
Of the past—to other seasons—to
the good old cowboy days,
When the grass wuz green an' wavin' an' the skies wuz soft and blue,
And the men were brave an' loyal, and the women fair an' true!
The old-time cowboy—here's
to him, from hired hand to boss!
His soul wuz free from envy and his heart wuz free from dross,
An' deep within his nature, which wuz rugged, high and bold,
There ran a vein uv metal, and the metal, men, wuz, gold!
....
Jay Snider recites the poem on
The BAR-D Roundup: Volume Three
(2008).
The poem was written by Luther A. Lawhon
(1861-1922) and is included in
The
Trail Drivers of Texas, best described
by its subtitle, "Interesting Sketches of Early Cowboys and Their
Experiences on the Range and on the Trail during the Days that Tried Men's
Souls—True Narratives Related by Real Cowpunchers and Men Who Fathered the
Cattle Industry in Texas." The book, with over a thousand pages, was
originally published by the Old Time Trail Driver's Association, where
Lawhon served as Secretary. An article by Lawhon, "The Men Who Made the
Trail," is also included in the book.
There were at least four editions of
the book published before a 1925 edition
that was reprinted in 1992 by the University of Texas Press and includes
an introduction by B. Byron Price and a full index. The early editions of
the book are rare, as are copies of Lawhon's other collections, which
include Songs and Satires
(1901) and Cactus Blossoms (1905). You can read more
about the University of Texas edition of The Trail Drivers of Texas,
and read B. Byron Price's introduction and view the table of contents at
the university's site
here.
The book is also available from
Amazon
and other booksellers.
"The Good Old Cowboy Days" is also posted
on the White
Mountains Roundup web site. Gathering organizer Jo Baeza, helped
research the copyright status of the poem (it is in the public
domain).
Read
"The Good Old Cowboy Days" here
at the BAR-D.
Posted 6/7
A contemporary poem from the archive...
Popular poet and
Oklahoma rancher
Jay
Snider is known for his own poems as well as for his
recitations. His poem,
Of Horses and Men, enjoys frequently radio airplay and
is chosen for reciting by others:
It's been told of
good horses lost
In simple words that cowboys use
He dern sure was a good one
He's the kind you hate to lose
He's the kind you could depend on
In the river and the breaks
In rough country and wild cattle
He'd be the one you'd take
...
Jay told us about how
he came to write the poem:
The inspiration for this
poem came to me on December 7, 2002. I had to put down a little bay stud
that we owned for near a dozen years. Cancer had invaded one of his
kidneys and the vet gave him little hope. It truly was a sad day for us.
I remember telling my wife and sons, "Doc sure was a good one. He's the
kind you hate to lose."
That same day, I had been asked to do a poem at an old man's funeral
that lived north of where we live. He was as good a cowman as ever came
out of our country. After the service, his eldest son said to me, "Dad
sure was a good one. He's the kind you hate to lose."
I could not get those words out of my mind. I started this poem that
night; however, I could not finish it until March 19, 2003 when we
received word that Larry McWhorter had
passed away. Then it came to me what I had been trying to say all along.
(A CD collection of
poems by Larry McWhorter (1957-2003), some recited by top poets who
were his friends, was released in January, 2010. See our feature
here.)
The January 2010 issue of
Western Horseman
magazine features Jay Snider in a multi-page article in its
Cowboy Culture
section, which includes his poem, "Twister." On the
Western Horseman
web site, a special presentation of images and audio includes his
poem "Heroes," accompanied by the music of Craig Stuke. See the
presentation
here.
Among Jay Snider's award-winning recordings
is his most recent, Of Horses and Men,
which includes "Heroes" and the title poem. Jay Snider, a past
Lariat Laureate at CowboyPoetry.com, is featured on each volume of
The BAR-D Roundup. He has
contributed a number of interesting photos to
Picture the West. In 2008, Jay was named the 2008 Academy of
Western Artists' Top Male Poet. He appears at events across the
West, and has been invited several times to the
National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. He'll be
appearing at the
Red Steagall
Cowboy Gathering in Ft. Worth, Texas, October 22-24, 2010.
Read more about him and his poetry
here at CowboyPoetry.com, and visit his web
site for his schedule and more:
www.jaysnider.net.
Posted 6/7
Welcome North Dakota's
Jarle Kvale
and his poem, First Horse:
The horse was kinda ugly, if you
want to know the truth—
was near impossible to age him, since he only had one tooth—
His mane was thin and scraggly, but at least that matched his
tail—
after close examination, flipped a coin and called him male.
....
Jarle is a frequent performer at the
Dakota Cowboy Poetry Gathering. His
bio tells, "I
have worked in radio and television broadcasting for most of my
professional life and am currently program director at
KEYA Public Radio
in Belcourt, North Dakota. My wife Ogin and I live north of
Dunseith North Dakota, along with an ever-changing number of
horses...."
Jarle Kvale has a new CD,
Fancy Fencin'.
Read more about it along with his poem.
This year, Jarle obtained a Cowboy Poetry Week
proclamation from North Dakota Governor
John Hoeven.
Posted 6/8
Welcome California
poet
Beau Hamel
and his poem, Cattle Call Language.
He told us, " This
poem pays homage to my Granddad, Richard H. Hamel, (1900-1976), a
cattleman who cowboyed, farmed, and raised prize-winning
Registered Hereford bulls on 'Oak Meadows,' his large and scenic
ranch in the Sacramento Valley foothills. My Granddad was an
amazing guy—a
leader and a winner. He served as President of the California
Cattlemen's Association, sold breeding stock all over the world,
and ran a highly progressive operation that, in 1966, received
national recognition with a Ford Farm Efficiency Award. I will
always cherish the times I had as a boy 'getting to ride along
with him.' My Granddad Hamel taught me many things about life—how
to be hardworking, how to solve problems, how to ride a horse, how
to vaccinate a cow, how to be tough when I needed to, and also how
to be a gentleman."
Read more along with his poem.
Posted 3/9
Texas poet
Laura Finlay Brown
shares her spirited poem, Mollie.
She told us, "I awoke one morning to the sound of
my workday alarm and immediately recalled the speckled mule in my
'oh, so recent' dream. She was the epitome of steadfast
stubbornness and I just had to concoct a poem about her."
Posted 6/9
Nevada writer and poet Hal
Swift shares his poem, Collector's
Item.
Hal says, "Anyone who's ever owned a firearm they had to pay real
money for will identify with this." Hal
Swift wrote a regular
column,
A Brush with an Old Sage, for the
Nevada Observer for
some years; all
of his columns are archived
here at the Nevada Observer).
He recites Charles Badger Clark Jr.'s Jeff Hart on
The BAR-D Roundup: Volume Five and James Barton Adams' classic,
Bill's in Trouble, on
The BAR-D Roundup: Volume Three.Read some of Hal Swift's poetry and more about him,
his book, and his CDs in our feature here.
[photo by Johnny Gunn]
Posted 6/10
Welcome
Mark Jarmon
and his poem, A Man Called Banjo.
Mark told us, "I teach poetry at an all-boys high
school, which can sometimes be a daunting task to say the least!
In 'A Man Called Banjo' I poke fun at the poets I teach, but also
pay tribute to the style and vision of the great Australian cowboy
poet,
Banjo Paterson.
We cover several of Paterson’s poems in class, and I like for my
students to make connections between our romantic view of life in
the West and Paterson’s view of his Australian homeland."
Read more about Mark Jarmon along with his poem.
Posted 6/10
Your support is essential to CowboyPoetry.com.
Be an important part of CowboyPoetry.com,
Cowboy Poetry Week, the
Rural Library Project, and all of
the activities of the Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Receive the
Cowboy Poetry Week poster,
available exclusively to supporters,
and
other benefits.
Please consider a
contribution in support of CowboyPoetry.com and the
Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Contributions from people like you make possible this site, Cowboy
Poetry Week, the Rural Library Project, and the Center's other
programs.
Read some
of our supporters' comments
here,
visit the Wall of Support, and
join in
and be an important part of it all!
Poems for the week of May 31:
John Wallace "Captain Jack" Crawford
(1847-1917) wrote about the "goldarn wheel" in his windy poem,
Broncho vs. Bicycle, from his 1910 book, Whar' the Hand o'
God is Seen and other poems. The poem is included in John A.
Lomax' 1919 book, Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp,
where the author is cited as "anonymous."
In Whar' the Hand o' God is Seen and other
poems,
Crawford introduces the poem, "Written by the request of
Colonel Albert A. Pope, and read at the Bicycle Club Dinner,
Boston, given in honor of Mr. Tom Stevens, the famous bicyclist,
who had just returned from a tour of the world on his wheel."
(You can hear a National Public Radio story about Tom Stevens
here at NPR and find the text of his 1887 book,
Around the World on a Bicycle,
here
at Project Gutenberg.)
New Mexico's
Press of the Palace of the Governors offers a hand-typeset
and hand-bound edition of "Broncho vs. Bicycle."
Captain Jack Crawford became known as "The Poet
Scout." He fought in the Civil War and in 1875 was appointed
Captain of the Black Hills Rangers militia. An informative
biography at the
Black Hills Visitor Magazine site tells, "He was one of a
very few “teetotalers” among the army scouts, and the only man
on the frontier who could be entrusted to deliver an unopened
bottle of whiskey, according to William “Buffalo Bill” Cody.
Cody described in his autobiography a meeting with Jack in July
of 1876..." He replaced
Buffalo Bill Cody as chief
of scouts for the 5th Cavalry, "only two months after the Custer
massacre at the Little Big Horn, and a mere three weeks after
the murder of Wild Bill Hickok in Deadwood." He joined Buffalo
Bill Cody's show, and the article reports, "The
partnership with Cody ended in Virginia City, Nevada, in the
summer of 1877 when, in a combat scene staged on horseback,
Crawford accidentally shot himself in the groin and blamed the
event on Cody's drunkenness."
Crawford later settled in New Mexico, and was involved in
ranching and mining. Read the entire article
here.
Captain Jack Crawford was a newspaper reporter, wrote
several books, and was well known for his poetry and tales about
his experiences. Poet James Barton Adams ("The
Cowboy's Dance Song")
wrote the introduction to the Whar' the Hand o' God is Seen
and other poems, noting that he and Crawford were close
friends, and writes, "...I never knew a day to pass in which he
did not, with rapidly moving pencil, give outflow to his poetic
imaginings in rhyme...." Adams tells that Crawford was
illiterate until he was wounded in the Civil War, "To use a
homely colloquialism, he did not 'know a B from a bull's foot'
until taught the alphabet by a Sister of Charity when, near the
close of the War, he lay upon a hospital cot suffering from a
gunshot wound received in battle...."
See our feature about Captain Jack Crawford's
here.
The author of a better-known poem about the
bicycle,
The Gol-Darned Wheel, remains
anonymous. The poem was included in Jack Thorp's 1921 book,
The Songs of the Cowboys.
At the
Western Folklife Center site, you can hear the late
Sunny Hancock's recitation of "The Gol-Darned Wheel," from a
recording made at the Western Folklife Center's first Cowboy
Poetry Gathering in 1985. Glenn Ohrlin has recorded the song,
and in his book, The Hell Bound
Train, he calls it "a fine example of the 'funny' cowboy
song." He writes, "In Texas Cowboys, Dane Coolidge tells
of getting cowboy Jess Fears to write 'The Gol-Darned Wheel'
down for him in Arizona in 1909. Coolidge wrote further, 'This
was hot stuff and the boys all wanted a copy of it. They were
like housewives exchanging recipes, only a cowboy hates to
write.'"
Posted 6/1
A contemporary poem from the
archive...
Rod Nichols left behind many friends
and many fans of his poetry when he died in 2007.
He was a prolific writer, and had performed at
many events and gatherings, including the National Cowboy Poetry
Rodeo. A friend to all, he hosted a poetry board where he was
unfailingly welcoming and encouraging to all who participated. He
was the "official poet" of the
Live! with Jim Thompson show. Jim
continues to keep Rod's memory alive by regularly reciting his
work on the daily show.
Rod was a part of
CowboyPoetry.com from its earliest days, and was the first Lariat
Laureate. His work is included on the first two editions of
The BAR-D Roundup and in The Big Roundup anthology.
It's not easy to
pick favorites, but "Yep," which was
chosen for first volume of The BAR-D
Roundup, is a fun and popular poem:
"It's been awhile," the cowboy said.
"Yep,"
replied his friend.
"It must be nearly fifteen years."
"Yep," he said again.
"I guess you been a driftin' some?"
"Yep,"
his friend replied.
"I guess I've done about the same."
"Yep," the old friend sighed.
....
Colorado's
Dick Morton does a fine recitation of
"Yep." He tells that when he asked Rod for permission, his answer
was to the point. He simply wrote, "Yep."
Another of Rod
Nichols' poems, "Headin' In," was
selected by the former United States Supreme Court Justice the
Honorable Sandra Day O'Connor for inclusion in her memoir,
Lazy B: Growing Up on a Cattle Ranch in the American Southwest:
....
Someday
this'll all be over
just the prairie, grass and wind,
I
hope He'll let me pass this way
when it's time for headin'
in.
....
Read more about Rod Nichols and more of his poetry in our
feature
here.
There are tributes to Rod
Nichols posted
here.
C olorado
cowboy
poet, songwriter and musician
Al "Doc" Mehl
writes about the landscape in A Quilt
in North Nebraska:
There’s a quilt in north Nebraska,
That’s been sewn into
the land;
Rolling grass fields are the fabric,
And the
batting’s made of sand.
...
Al tells that he was inspired both by poet
Yvonne Hollenbeck's award-winning quilts and by Colorado poet
Jane Morton's poem, "Summer
'34." He writes, "In this piece, Jane describes her mother
taking up the art of piecing a quilt to combat the loneliness she
felt living out on the eastern plains of Colorado. I can still
hear Jane's voice: 'Mom pieced and pieced and pieced some more,
that summer '34; My mother was expecting, and the wind blew
evermore.'"
Read more along with his poem. Al's poem, "Graduation," is
included in the Summer, 2010
Rattle
poetry journal, in a special "Tribute
to Humor." One of his poems was also
chosen for a Winter,
2008
Rattle
issue that celebrated "the poetry of the Western range" with works
by 24 cowboy and Western poets.In his "other life," Al
recently returned from
Ghana, Africa where he was
participating in a humanitarian medical mission. Read more about
that here.
Posted 6/2
British
Columbia cowboy and poet
Mike Puhallo's
latest "Meadow Muffin" is a true story,
Tough:
....
His pelvis broke, his horse run off,
He endured the waves of pain.
Trying to focus on the positive,
At least it did not look like rain.
....
Mike comments, "My little brother Gordon ranches at Big Creek
about 70 miles southwest of Williams Lake BC. Just over a week ago
he broke his pelvis, in a horse wreck. It was about twelve hours
before he was found by a neighboring rancher. He is recovering in
hospital at Kamloops."
Several years ago, Mike sold his interest in that ranch he shared
with his brother, and now is doing what he says he always wanted
to do: just cowboy.
Mike's "Meadow Muffins" are syndicated in a number
of publications. You can also read Mike's weekly "Meadow Muffins"
at the
BCCHS Cowboy
Poets' Page
and at
Cowboylife.com.
Read more of Mike's poetry and more
about him in our feature here and visit his web
site:
www.mikepuhallo.com.
Posted 6/2
Welcome
Dale Major
from Utah, and his poem,
Roping Excuse.
Dale told us, "The inspiration for this poem came
while hiking down the segment of the 'Hole in the Rock' (San Juan
County, Utah) trail called 'Slick Rocks,' where this pioneer story
occurred. Having ridden over Gray Mesa horseback, I can understand
my great grandfather's and the other scouts' dilemma in finding a
way for their pioneer wagon train to go. Great grandpa Hobbs'
roping skills were limited to that necessary for farm living,
hence it probably would have taken several throws just to get
warmed up. I have friends with roping cattle who do invite me to
come and rope with them, but my 'rodeo' roping skills leave a lot
to be desired...." Read more along with his poem.
Dale is from Avon, Utah, which he says, "... is
south of Paradise, and north of Eden!." He tells, "We raise club
calves, horses and children, not necessarily in that order. We
enjoy moving our cattle horseback and winter feeding with horses.
We do an annual horse ride from our home in Avon, Utah to the
children's grandparents' ranch in Lyman, Wyoming, a 3-day ride of
106 miles. A child must be at least 3 years old to go on this
ride. We enjoy performing cowboy music and poetry."
Posted 6/3
Your support is essential to
CowboyPoetry.com.
Be an important part of CowboyPoetry.com,
Cowboy Poetry Week, the
Rural Library Project, and all of
the activities of the Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Receive the
Cowboy Poetry Week poster,
available exclusively to supporters, and
other benefits.
Please consider a
contribution in support of CowboyPoetry.com and the
Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Contributions from people like you make possible this site, Cowboy
Poetry Week, the Rural Library Project, and the Center's other
programs.
Read some
of our supporters' comments
here,
visit the Wall of Support, and
join in
and be an important part of it all!
Poems for the week of May 24:
A hundred years ago this year,
Katherine Fall Pettey
published Songs from
the Sage Brush, which includes the poem,
Morning on the Desert:
Morning on the desert, and the wind is
blowin' free,
And it's ours jest for the breathin', so let's fill up, you an' me.
No more stuffy cities where you have to pay to breathe—
Where the helpless, human creatures, throng, and move, and strive and
seethe.
....
The poem has long been printed and
recited—as "Mornin' on the Desert"—with no credit to an author. It is
sometimes said to be "found written on the door of an old cabin in the
desert." The poem was the subject of popular postcards in the 1930s and
1940s, none of which included the author's name.
Jerry Brooks
does a fine recitation of the poem. Before we knew about Katherine Fall
Pettey, and when "Brooksie" was considering recording it for
The BAR-D Roundup: Volume Two, we set out to
see if we could locate the rightful author. The list of holdings at the
Fife Folkore Archives'
Skaggs Cowboy Poetry Collection gave us a clue. We saw there was a
book with a poem with a close title ("Morning" rather than "Mornin'"). We
located a copy of the book (Songs
from the Sage Brush) and the poem.
We researched numerous sources
looking for more information about her, and never turned up a bit
of biographical information. Her table of contents in Songs
from the Sage Brush indicates that some poems are included
"courtesy of" a few periodicals:
Sunset, Out Door Life, and West Coast. We've located
one of those poems and others in other magazines, but none had
biographical information along with the poems.
Update: Genealogical research
has
turned up information about Katherine Fall Pettey. She was born in
Tennessee in 1874 and died in California in 1951. Her father,
William R. Fall, was a schoolteacher. He was the son of English
minister Phillip Slater Fall. Her mother, Edmonia (Taylor) was a
music teacher. The family lived in Kentucky. Her brother, Albert
Bacon Fall, was a U.S. Senator in New Mexico and served as
Secretary of the Interior under President Warren Harding.
According to a Wikipedia article
here,
he also "....defended the accused killer of former Sheriff Pat
Garrett. Garrett, who had killed outlaw Billy the Kid in 1881...."
We'll add any more information we uncover as we pursue more about
Katherine Fall Pettey's life.
Recently, singer, songwriter, and musician Gianluca Plomitallo of
Milan, Italy, recorded his musical arrangement of the poem. You can listen
here.
Gianluca records his soul, pop, and acoustic music under "The Huge" label
(www.thehuge.bandcamp.com).
He welcomes feedback at plomi@thehuge.it.
Find more about the "Morning on the Desert" and other poems by Katherine
Fall Pettey in our feature
here.
Posted 5/24
A contemporary song from the archive....
Poet and songwriter
Les Buffham
is known for his many collaborations with Western musicians. One
of his best-known collaborations is with top cowboy singer and
songwriter Dave Stamey, in
Spin That Pony:
Old Mike Hernandez was a bueno vaquero
Rode some good horses Californio style
I watched him for hours and he showed me a
little
Of the old California he knew for a while
He started young horses in bosal y
fiador
Onto the two rein; the old Spanish spade
Brought them along with two hands that
were gentle
Some fine reining horses as ever were made
....
Les tells about the song's
inspiration and the man who is the subject: "His name was Mike
Hernandez and when I first met him it never registered with me
what a unique individual he was. He was an older, rather
large man who lived in an old shack up the road a ways and had
no running water...
"My wife and I were newlyweds and
staying with her mother near Arroyo Grande, California. Mike
rented some pasture on the backside of her place where he ran a
few cows. He rode through her property to check on those cows
every day and one thing I did notice right away was the quality
of his horses and tack. His tack wasn't real fancy with a lot of
silver but it was sure enough a touch above the average and his
horses were all top notch. I found out later that he was
dedicated to those horses and treated them like family."
Read more about what Les has to say and Dave Stamey's comments on the
collaboration in an article
here, which includes the lyrics.
Les Buffham has just released
a second collection of "writes and
co-writes." Read Rick Huff's review
here.
Find more about Les Buffham in our feature
here.
[photo of Les Buffham by Jack Hummel]
Posted 5/26
North Carolina's
Jay Bryan
shares his poem, “It
Seems To Me To Be As I Now See the Things I Think I See.”
The title is taken from John McPhee's book,
Rising from the Plains.
Jay told us about the poem's inspiration, "My brother-in-law's father, a
rancher from Dubois, took me fishing in September. He was seventy-nine at
the time. It was raw and cold but beautifully so. I thought of the
geological history of Wyoming's mountains, their ups and downs over
millions of years, and of my own mortality.... it began to snow and I was
reminded of how like a speck of sand I was in terms of the universe but
also how much living meant to me..."
Read more along with Jay's poem.
Posted 5/25
Alberta rancher
Ron Gale
tells us that his poem,
Ropin' a Moose,
is a true story, from his experience in the 1940s.
He tells, "...I wrote it
in '46 or '47 at 13 or 14 years of age. I was working at a logging camp
skidding logs at ten cents a log with five horses and making more money
than the sawyer. When the camp shut down, due to lack of timber, everyone
went in to Calgary and applied for unemployment insurance but I was
rejected because I was too young..."
See Ron's full-sized illustration along with his poem.
Posted
5/26
Welcome California
poet Joe Peters
and his poem, Ride to Fly, which tells of
some special horses and special riders. Joe told us, "Since I had been a
Therapeutic Riding Instructor, the topic was a natural..."
Joe is "...a
livestock volunteer at the historic
Rancho Los Alamitos,
helping to train and care for the horses that are kept on site."
Read more about him along with his poem.
Posted 5/26
Utah's Cathy Brian
shares her poem, Cowboy, Quit Your Cussin'.
She told us about the poem's inspiration, "Cowboys are
imbedded in life and death. They see it, they experience it almost daily.
It teaches them to face reality. The best cowboy I know (my husband) when
I asked him 'What in the heck is wrong with people today in the cities?,'"
he replied, 'They are just too far removed from agriculture.' I've thought
an awful lot about that statement. I think he may be right. This poem was
written as a simple life lesson that a cowboy learned from his experiences
with cows on the trail."
Cathy lives in in Loa, Utah
on a cattle and sheep ranch with her family. Her bio tells, "I was raised
in the city, but felt misplaced my whole life."
Read more along with her poem.
Posted 5/27
Tamara Hillman's
poem has some Advice from a Cowboy's
Wife.
Tamara, who was
raised on a ranch in eastern Washington,
comments, "I wrote this one for all the hired help a ranch wife takes the
place of when she marries a cowboy. I've witnessed it all my life..."
Read more along with her poem.
Posted 5/27
Memorial Day
is observed in the United States on Monday, May 31.
Find our selection of classic and contemporary
poems
here.
Tune into
Live with Jim Thompson
on Monday, May 31 on the web at 12:00 Mountain, for his annual
Memorial Show (and it is available in the show's archive as soon
as Friday, May 28). This year's show includes a new poem by
Cade Schalla and poems by
Kip Sorlie,
Slim McNaught, Andy Nelson,
Yvonne Hollenbeck, the late
Rod Nichols, and others.
Your support is essential to CowboyPoetry.com.
Be an important part of CowboyPoetry.com,
Cowboy Poetry Week, the
Rural Library Project, and all of
the activities of the Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Receive the
Cowboy Poetry Week poster,
available exclusively to supporters, and
other benefits.
Please consider a
contribution in support of CowboyPoetry.com and the
Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Contributions from people like you make possible this site, Cowboy
Poetry Week, the Rural Library Project, and the Center's other
programs.
Read some
of our supporters' comments
here,
visit the Wall of Support, and
join in
and be an important part of it all!
Poems for the week of May 17:
Bruce
Kiskaddon (1878-1950), arguably the most-read classic cowboy
poet with the most frequently recited poems, prefaced his 1924 book,
Rhymes of the Ranges, with this
Introductory:
....
They are plain simple tales, of the
round-ups and trails,
When he worked on the range with the cattle;
Not of wild woolly nights, nor of gambling hall fights,
But the days and the nights in the saddle.
....
"Introductory" is included in Bill Siems' monumental
monumental book,
Open Range, which collects
Kiskaddon's entire output of 481 poems. Bill Siem's previous book
was
Shorty's Yarns, a collection of Kiskaddon's short stories.
See our features about Bruce Kiskaddon's work:
poems, books, and more ;
Open Range;
and
Shorty's Yarns.
Posted 5/17
A contemporary poem from the
archives...
Top cowboy poet
Waddie Mitchell
delivers some cowboy philosophy in his poem,
Story with a Moral:
Now I know there's things
worse that make cowpunchers curse,
And I reckon it's happened to us
all.
Though it's years since, you bet, when I think of it yet,
It
still makes my old innards crawl.
I was makin' a ride to
bring in one hide
That hadn't showed up in the gather;
I was
riding upstream, daydreamin' a dream,
When I caught there was
somethin' the matter.
....
Instrumental in the creation of the first
cowboy poetry gathering in Elko, Nevada, in 1985 (now known as the Western
Folklife Center's National Cowboy Poetry Gathering) Waddie Michell's
official biography tells, "From his earliest days on the remote Nevada
ranches where his father worked, Waddie was immersed in the cowboy way of
entertaining, the art of spinnin' tales in rhyme and meter that came to be
called cowboy poetry, a Western tradition that is as rich as the lifestyle
that gave birth to it. Within his stories, told in a voice that is
timeless and familiar, are the common bonds we all share, moments both
grand and commonplace, the humorous and the tragic, the life and death
straggles and triumphs that we each recognize. And yet, Waddie presents
his material with personal insights and the lessons learned during his
life spent as a buckaroo."
Waddie Mitchell recites his poem, "No Second Chance," on
The BAR-D Roundup: Volume 5.
Read more about Waddie Mitchell in our feature
here.
Posted 5/17
Arkansas rancher
Michael Henley
shares his poem, Nubbin Miller:
He had worked for my family since back before the war,
lived in a trailer on the low end of the ranch.
Somethin' 'bout him attracted me ever since I was a kid
and I was with him every time I got the chance.
....
Michael has commented, "There are not
many ways to accurately describe the freedom, independence or spirit of
the West and the cowboy life, but to my friends who seek an explanation,
I've found poetry to do it best. I've been playing the guitar and writing
cowboy songs all my life."
Posted 5/18
Texan
John Yaws
writes from his experience in A Cowboy's Life:
Hear the clock alarming,
Two hours before the sun—
It’s said, and I believe it...
That our work is never done.
I drink my hot black coffee—
It’s too early yet to eat...
I have to catch the horses up
And trim old Blackie’s feet.
....
He told us, "A couple of months ago it was 'Trail Ride'
time down here in East Texas. As I poked along behind one of the Trail
Rides in my pickup and started mentally evaluating the cowboys and
cowgirls along the road, it took me back to my working days and I had to
smile and shake my head as I wondered how this crew would have shaped up
in the setting of 'cain’t to cain’ts,' eating dust and manure, and the
smell of burning hair and horn from branding fires and cauterizing irons.
It was just another little spell of reminiscing."
Posted 5/18
Wyoming writer and poet
Jean Mathisen Haugen
writes about the Pioneer Days Rodeo at Lander, Wyoming—celebrating
116 years in 2010—in
her poem, Heart of the Rodeo.
Jean comments, "This poem was inspired one
day when I was walking by what was once the original rodeo grounds here at
Lander, back in the early 1890s. Our Pioneer Days Rodeo started in 1894
and pre-dates Cheyenne Frontier Days by 3 years.
"Unfortunately, they have made that old
historic ground into a housing subdivision and the site of a new middle
school and there goes the last of the open ground in our end of town. We
do still have active rodeo grounds on the hill above town that date back
to the mid-1930s when the Civilian Conservation Corps built them...."
Read more along with her poem.
Posted 5/19
Popular poet, writer, emcee and radio
co-host Andy Nelson shares the
story of Jake and Marlene.
Andy says it is "...another true story...of course everything I
write is true."
Andy and his brother Jim co-host the weekly
syndicated Clear Out West (C.O.W.)
radio show, which you can hear on demand on the internet.
Andy is frequently featured at events across the West,
and his poetry has been featured on each edition of
The BAR-D Roundup.
He has several CDs and books.
Andy honors his family's generations of cowboys and farriers in his
newest book,
Riding with Jim, which
include his stories and poetry along with stories written by his
father James F. Walker Nelson, all
complemented by vintage photographs and top illustrator Bonnie
Shields' drawings.
Read more about Andy and some of his
poetry in our feature
here. Visit his web site for more:
www.cowpokepoet.com.
[photo by Jeri L. Dobrowski; see
her gallery of western performers and others
here.]
Posted 5/20
Welcome
B. R. Warner
with the poem, Home Tonight, described as
"... a retelling of nature being equally stern and spirited...."
B. R. Warner writes, "Much of my good
poetry is scrolled and tucked into old boots that have settled beyond
their duty and now slouch in postures shaped by wear and time...."
Read more along with B.R. Warner's poem.
Posted 5/20
Your support is essential to
CowboyPoetry.com.
Be an important part of CowboyPoetry.com,
Cowboy Poetry Week, the
Rural Library Project, and all of
the activities of the Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Receive the
Cowboy Poetry Week poster,
available exclusively to supporters, and
other benefits.
Please consider a
contribution in support of CowboyPoetry.com and the
Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Contributions from people like you make possible this site, Cowboy
Poetry Week, the Rural Library Project, and the Center's other
programs.
Read some
of our supporters' comments
here,
visit the Wall of Support, and
join in
and be an important part of it all!
Poems for the week of May 10:
 
Music historian, musician, and reciter
Rex Rideout
delivers the anonymous vintage poem,
When Bob Got Throwed, on The BAR-D Roundup: Volume
Five:
That time when Bob got throwed
I thought I sure
would bust;
I liked to died a-laffin'
To see him chewin' dust.
....
Rex Rideout notes that the poem first appears in John
Lomax's 1919 book, Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cowcamp, "and
the author or source is credited simply as "Ray." In a second edition
of Songs of the Cowboys,
published in 1921, Jack Thorp includes the poem with the introduction,
"Author unknown. Heard it sung in Arizona at Hachita by a puncher
named Livingston." Rex comments, "It never again appeared in any early
cowboy poetry collections or anthologies..."
The
Western Folklife
Center has a series of recent blogs relating to John
Lomax (1867-1948), the first folklorist to record
cowboy songs. From the WFC description:
Follow along as Hal Cannon and Taki Telonidis of Western
Folklife Center Media take to the roads of Texas and Louisiana on the
trail of cowboy song collector John Lomax. Together with folklorist Steve
Zeitlin of CityLore in New York City, Hal and Taki are working on a story
for National Public Radio for the 100th anniversary of the publishing of
Lomax's first collection...
Find the blogs
here. (There's
a complete digitized copy of Lomax's 1910
Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads
here.)You can find complete copies of Lomax's
1919
Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cowcamp
in several places, including
Gutenberg.org
and the
Digital Commons at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Rex Rideout is a long-time student and performer of the music and
songs of the 19th-century American West. Read more about him
here
and at his web site,
Time Travel Music.
Posted 5/10
A contemporary poem from the
archive...
Anthem,
Buck Ramsey's
(1938-1998)
master work—a book-length poem titled
Grass—starts
with
opening lines familiar to every serious cowboy poet and
fan of the genre:
And in the morning I was riding
Out through the
breaks of that long plain,
And leather creaking on the quieting
Would sound with trot and trot again.
I lived in time with horse hoof
falling;
I listened well and heard the calling
The earth, my
mother, bade to me,
Though I would still ride wild and free.
And
as I flew out in the morning,
Before the bird, before the dawn,
I
was the poem, I was the song.
My heart would beat the world a
warning—
Those horsemen now rode all with me,
And we were good,
and we were free.
....
Hal Cannon, founding Director of the Western
Folklife Center, has commented that "Anthem" is
"...thought of as the finest contemporary piece of writing in
this tradition... "
Buck Ramsey's
own recording of the entire poem is included on a CD that accompanies the
book,
Buck Ramsey's Grass, with essays on his life and work,
published by Texas Tech University Press, 2005. ("Anthem" is also included
on the first volume of The BAR-D Roundup,
and each volume since includes another chapter from the poem.)
Grass
began as a short story called "A Beginning," which Buck Ramsey
later rewrote it for a magazine, naming it "The Wagon Incident."
The story is included in Buck Ramsey's
Grass, with essays on his life and work.
In an introduction to the recording that
accompanies the Texas Tech book, poet, writer, musician and Buck
Ramsey's friend Andy Wilkinson tells how the recording was made.
It was not long after Buck Ramsey had finished the first draft of
the poem, and after Buck "... had made a new friend of his
long-time idol, folk singer Ramblin' Jack Elliott. They'd met at
the Elko Cowboy Poetry gathering in one of those famous
after-hours jam sessions at the Stockman's Hotel where Buck and
Jack swapped poems and songs into the small hours of the
morning... Ramblin' Jack was especially taken with one of the
poems he'd heard Buck recite and suggested that Buck get it down
on tape, mentioning that he had a friend in Nashville, musician
John Hartford, who had a nicely-appointed home studio...."
Wilkinson comments that this track is from that tape, "the first
ever made of the modern cowboy classic Grass." Read the
entire introduction here, in our
feature about Buck Ramsey's Grass, with essays on his life and
work.
An award-winning recording from Smithsonian Folkways,
Buck Ramsey, Hittin' the Trail, was released in 2003. It is
described, "Called the 'spiritual leader of the cowboy poetry
movement,' Buck Ramsey was beloved by his fellow poets and musicians, his
'cowboy tribe,' and all who knew him. A National Cowboy Poetry Gathering
favorite and recipient of the highest honor bestowed on traditional folk
artists in America, the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage
Fellowship, Ramsey brought traditional cowboy songs to life. This 2-CD
set, mostly recorded in concert, shows his immediate warmth and personal
presence. Ramsey's spiritual home was always on the range; close your eyes
while listening, and you will find yourself transported to the Texas
Panhandle."
Between Grass and Sky, a film
produced by Jerry Dugan (FLF
Films), features
top poets and reciters
Joel Nelson,
Jerry Brooks,
and
Andy Hedges
reciting
"Anthem.
View the film
here
at the
UeBERSEE web site.
See our features here
about Buck Ramsey, which include information about his work, tributes
to his life, and many links. Also see a separate feature about Buck
Ramsey's Grass, with essays on his life and work
here.
[photo by Scott Braucher]
Posted 5/10
Singer and songwriter
Kerry Grombacher
is embarking on an 1,800 odyssey of exploring rural America, from the
Dakotas to Texas, on his "Hwy 281 Troubadour Tour." He shares the lyrics
for his song,
Highway 281:
Shining white above the treetops, overlooking its domain
A grain elevator, the cathedral of the Plains
As the sun comes up, the farmer prays for the crop that’s in the field
All his dreams, his hopes and fears, lie in the yield
I see a clothesline strung from an old caboose to a car that’s up on
blocks
The door to the feed and seed is closed with the sheriff’s lock
Now there’s a gallery and a coffee shop inside the western store
Nothing’s quite the same as it was before
....
Kerry will be appearing at the Heritage of the
American West Performance Series in Spearfish, South Dakota on May 20,
2010, as part of that tour. He's quoted in the show's media release:
“Seeing it through your windshield is like watching an ever-changing
canvas, the open range and farm ground of North and South Dakota,
Nebraska’s Sand Hills and Kansas’ Gypsum Hills, the prairie of Oklahoma
and the Hill Country of Texas....In taking stories in song from town to
town, it’s a reminder to us all that there are others who have stories to
share from places much like our own—wherever we might call home.” Read
more about the Heritage of the American West program
here.
Read more about Kerry Grombacher in our feature
here and visit his web site,
www.kgrombacher.com.
[photograph
©
Lori Faith Merritt,
www.photographybyfaith.com]
Posted 5/11
Debra Meyer
brings smiles with her poem,
Horse Sense:
“She’s strong,” the cowboy offered,
With a twinkle in his eye.
“I’ll wager she’s got bottom,
With no quit and lots of try.”
...
She told us, " I
wrote this poem for a friend who attended the National Cowboy Poetry
Gathering in Elko, Nevada, with my family and me. This gentleman was
smitten with a lovely lady poet. After listening to her poems, he
complimented her poetry and delivery. He then commented on her
beauty. He said, 'She's strong," along with, 'she's got good bone
structure and a good jaw line.' We teased him about using the same
descriptive language for fine horses..."
Read the poem and about Debra Meyer
here.
Posted 5/12
South Dakota poet and hay farmer
Kip Sorlie
shares his poem,
Unstruck:
A threaded metal cap
Screws tightly to the tin.
The slender tube keeps dry
The single match within.
....
He told us, "I think that all men are given the
chance to be good and honorable. I believe the cowboy has been chosen
as the standard by which all others are judged...His image will
survive as long as there remains a single match to be carried." Read
more along with his poem.
Kip has written, "I
am not a cowboy, ranch raised and trail hardened before being able
to walk. In my case the condition was entirely adult onset..."
Posted 5/13
KD Younger
covers it all in A
Cowperson's Hat:
....
We roll the brim, we punch the crown,
we make it look just right...
We pitch pine blend the felted fur
to keep it watertight!
....
KD Younger is "an Old West enactor,
entertainer, magicienne, sidekick, and more." Read more along with her
poem.
Posted 5/13
Your support is essential to
CowboyPoetry.com.
Be an important part of CowboyPoetry.com,
Cowboy Poetry Week, the
Rural Library Project, and all of
the activities of the Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Receive the
Cowboy Poetry Week poster,
available exclusively to supporters, and
other benefits.
Please consider a
contribution in support of CowboyPoetry.com and the
Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Contributions from people like you make possible this site, Cowboy
Poetry Week, the Rural Library Project, and the Center's other
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Read some
of our supporters' comments
here,
visit the Wall of Support, and
join in
and be an important part of it all!
Poems for the week of May 3:
Poet
Rhoda Sivell
(1874-1962) lived in Canada and published a
collection of poems,
Voices from the Range,
in 1911, which was reissued several times. In some editions, the book's
illustrations include pieces by Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell.
The book includes the nostalgic poem, Come
with Me To the Old Range:
Come with me to the old range
Just for an hour or so;
You'll hear the call of the range stock
And the voices of the Chinook blow.
Blowing down o'er the windswept hills
Where the pups of the grey wolf play
And their dens lie deep in the hidden steep
Of the cut-banks far away.
....
Montana poet and songwriter
Almeda Terry
recent put the work of Rhoda Sivell to music in her recent CD,
Voices from the Range.
Rhoda Sivell ranched in the Medicine Hat
area. The
Esplanade
Archives in Medicine Hat, Alberta, has digitized a recording of Rhoda
Sivell telling about her life, which you can listen to
here.
Rhoda Sivell's grandson William Sivell
has shared information and photographs. Also recently added to the feature
is an index of material in
Pioneer Poetry and Prose, which was published in 2000
and includes Rhoda Sivell's poetry and autobiographical writings.
Read more about Rhoda Sivell and more of her poetry in
our feature
here.
Posted 5/4
A contemporary song from the
archives...
Respected cowboy
troubadour
Don Edwards, known for his
interpretations of classic cowboy songs, is a songwriter as well.
One of his works is Minstrel of the
Range:
See him out there
a-rangin' alone
A solitary rider from out of the past
Hidin' and
singin' all by himself
Of the old singin' cowboys, he may be the
last.
He has written about the song, "I wanted
to write a song that paid tribute to Curley
Fletcher and other cowboy minstrels of the early days. I
didn't have the foggiest idea how or what I was going to write with
the title I had dreamed up, until one day I was reading some of
William Wordsworth's poetry and came across a poem called 'The
Solitary Reaper.' As I read and reread this poem, words began coming
to me as the 'Solitary Reaper' became a 'Solitary Cowboy.'
Where the tune came from, I don't know..."
Read more
here
along with the poem, where you'll also find the Wordsworth poem.
Don Edwards
received the Chester A. Reynolds Memorial Award
from the
National
Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum
on April 17, 2010. From the museum's media release:
With a career
spanning more than four decades, Don Edwards is a guitarist,
composer, recording artist and historian who has preserved and
added value to the rich heritage of traditional Western music...
Born in New
Jersey in 1938 as the son of a Vaudeville magician, Edwards was
exposed at an early age to a vast array of music. He taught
himself how to play the guitar at the age of 10 and moved to Texas
when he was 16. Edwards was drawn to the cowboy way of life by the
books of Will James and “B” Western movies that featured cowboys
like Tom Mix and Ken Maynard. As a teenager, he worked ranches in
Texas and New Mexico and chased rodeos before landing his first
entertainment job as an actor, singer and stuntman at Six Flags
Over Texas in 1961. Edwards made his first record in 1964. He has
since recorded more than 15 albums, participated in numerous
collaborations with other artists and has authored three song
books.
Edwards has
contributed much to the preservation and celebration of
traditional cowboy music. He has two albums, Guitars & Saddle
Songs and Songs of the Cowboy, included in the Folklore Archives
of the Library of Congress. As a result of 40 years of research,
Edwards completed Saddle Songs, a compilation of classic cowboy
ballads presented through two separate recordings and a book of
the songs’ histories, lyrics and music. To add to his resume of
talent, Edwards portrayed the role of “Smokey” in Robert Redford’s
1997 film
The Horse Whisperer. He also was featured on the movie’s
sound track.
Edwards has many awards to show for his accomplishments as a
Western music balladeer and historian. He has received the
National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum’s Wrangler Award, along
with numerous other awards from The Western Music Association, The
Academy of Western Artists, the Will James Society, the National
Association for Independent Music. He was selected Best Balladeer
by
True West magazine three years in a row. He also is an
inductee in the Traditional Country Music Hall of Fame, the
Western Walk of Stars, the Texas Trail of Fame, and the Texas
Cowboy Hall of Fame.
When Edwards is
not recording music he often gives workshops and lectures about
Cowboy music heritage. He has taught seminars at Yale, Rice, Texas
Christian and other universities. He also has appeared on hundreds
of radio and television programs and performed thousands of
concerts throughout the United States, Canada, Great Britain,
Ireland, New Zealand, Europe and Asia.
View a video interview with Don Edwards filmed at the awards event
at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum
here on
YouTube.
See our feature about Don Edwards
here and visit his web site,
www.donedwardsmusic.com.
[Photograph by Lori Faith Merritt (www.photographybyfaith.com]
Posted 5/4
Mother's Day is celebrated Sunday, May 9 in
Canada and the U.S.
British
Columbia cowboy and poet
Mike Puhallo shares his
latest "Meadow Muffin," Happy Mother's Day:
My mother is a lady,
She stood just five foot two.
But she could calve out heifers,
And run the baler too.
....
Mike's "Meadow Muffins" are syndicated in a number of
publications. You can also read Mike's weekly "Meadow Muffins" at
the
BCCHS Cowboy
Poets' Page
and at
Cowboylife.com.
Mike has been involved with a group creating a lasting tribute to
rodeo legend Kenny McLean. A life-size bronze statue of Kenny
McLean will be unveiled at Centennial Park in Okanagan Falls,
British Columbia on May 8, 2010. Read more about it
here in our news and at
www.kennymcleanbronze.com.
Read more of Mike's poetry and more about him in our feature
here and visit his web site:
www.mikepuhallo.com.
Posted 5/5
Siblings
Sharon Brown and
Smoke Wade share words
and photos in a special
Mother's Day tribute
to their mother, Betty Jean Tippett.
Smoke Wade, who has contributed many interesting
pieces to
Picture the West and Western Memories,
writes about his mother in "Mom
Was a Cowgirl,"
both in prose and
poetry.
Sharon Brown remembers her mother in words and poems, including
Rimrock Sourdough,
Hollyhocks and Four O'Clocks,
and Night of the Rodeo Queen.
A collection of
vintage photos
accompanies the poems and prose.
See the special feature
here.
Betty Jean Tippett
1921 - 1993
Find past years' Mother's Day tributes (by
Jane Morton,
Hal Swift,
Slim McNaught,
and
Dennis Gaines)
and classic and modern poems to mothers in the collection
here.
Posted 5/6
Your support is essential to
CowboyPoetry.com.
Be an important part of CowboyPoetry.com,
Cowboy Poetry Week, the
Rural Library Project, and all of
the activities of the Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Receive the
Cowboy Poetry Week poster,
available exclusively to supporters, and
other benefits.
Please consider a
contribution in support of CowboyPoetry.com and the
Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Contributions from people like you make possible this site, Cowboy
Poetry Week, the Rural Library Project, and the Center's other
programs.
Read some
of our supporters' comments
here,
visit the Wall of Support, and
join in
and be an important part of it all!
Poems for the week of April 26:
The BAR-D Roundup: Volume 5
includes a vintage recording of
Harry Jackson
delivering Some Cowboy Brag Talk:
I was I was born full-growed with nine rows of
jaw teeth and holes bored for more. There was spurs on my feet and a
rawhide quirt in my hand, and when they opens the chute I come out
a-riding' a panther and a-ropin' the long-horned whales. I've rode
everything with hair on it... and I've rode a few things that was too
rough to grow any hair.....
The recording is from a 1959 recording from
Smithsonian Folkways,
The
Cowboy: His Songs, Ballads and Brag Talk.
Born in Chicago in 1924, Harry Jackson is said to have been first exposed
to cowboy songs by a former cowboy who was working at the Chicago
Stockyards. He took off for Wyoming after being thrown out of his first
year of high school, and worked on ranches there and learned many cowboy
songs and poems from old hands. The liner notes from The Cowboy: His
Songs, Ballads and Brag Talk in this downloadable
.pdf file from Smithsonian Folkways tell more about his life. He later
studied art and is today recognized internationally for his paintings and
bronze sculptures. He has a gallery in Cody and lives much of the year in
Italy.
Harry Jackson comments about the origins of the
songs he knows in the liner notes, "...There could not be a more difficult
and even close to impossible question to answer. I crossed these songs
under so many circumstances that I just can't unravel a lot of them. It is
almost impossible to try and talk of things as obscure and long set aside
as where one first heard a song which he has been singing and forgetting
and remembering again for 15 or 20 years or more." The liner notes
do include references for many of the pieces included in the album.
A 1934 paper, "Frontier Tall
Talk," by William F. Thompson of the University of Nebraska
states: "Frontier tall talk is to be distinguished from its close
relative, the tall tale, by the fact that it does not necessarily
contain the elements of narration. It is rather a form of
utterance ranging in composition from striking concoctions of
ingeniously contrived epithets, expressing disparagement or
encomium, to wild hyperbole, fantastic simile and metaphor, and a
highly bombastic display of oratory, employed to impress the
listener with the physical prowess or general superiority of the
speaker or of this friends." It might be interesting to know what
some of the practitioners of cowboy brag talk would have to say
about professors who attempt to describe their lingo.
There are many examples of brag talk in
collections of cowboy songs and poetry, and we'll include some of
those in future postings.
Posted 4/26
A contemporary poem from the archive...
Arizona poet, songwriter, and artist
Dee Strickland Johnson ("Buckshot Dot")
has a poem that resonates with many females,
Tomboy:
I was raised with seven brothers
near a place called Concho Lake.
There was Jamie, Jeff, and Joseph,
Sam and Seth and Sid and Jake.
So I grew up rough and tumble,
and I made my share of noise,
Romped the dogs and roped the horses.
I was rowdy as the boys!
....
"Tomboy" is included on
The BAR-D Roundup: Volume 5,
and Buckshot Dot told us that she was glad to have her poem in a
collection with Georgie Sicking on the cover,
and preceding Georgie's own poem, "Be Yourself." She says that "Tomboy"
was inspired by some comments that Georgie Sicking made, years ago, at the
Arizona Cowboy Poets Gathering.
Buckshot Dot is a frequent performer at Western gatherings. She has
books and CDs, including a recent recording,
One More Dance, and two
award-winning books, Arizona Women—Weird, Wild
and Wonderful
and Arizona Herstory: Tales from Her Storied
Past. Another interesting offering is her CD,
The Unquiet Grave and other British Ballads,
with 11 hauntingly beautiful songs, originally recorded in about 1976 when
her husband John was working at the Ozark Folk Center and she and her
children were appearing there nightly.
Buckshot Dot is as artist, as well, and two of her pieces have been Art
Spur subjects: "At the Jollification" and "A
Cowboy's Christmas Eve."
Read some of Buckshot Dot's poetry here and visit
her web site, www.BuckshotDot.com.
Posted 4/26
South Dakota
rancher and poet
Ken Cook
shares his poem, Best for Now:
We are the head and not the tail,
Hold scant respect for concrete trail,
We choose to ride with engines quiet,
Breath by breath outside the riot
....
Ken told us, "My cousin Buck Buckles was born and raised
in the Sandhills of Nebraska, by far one of the best hands I have ever
known. He will turn seventy years old this year and on more than one
occasion Buck has been quoted as saying, 'All I ever wanted to do was
work horses and punch cows.' I stole the line...Buck doesn't know yet."
Read more along with Ken's poem.
Ken Cook is featured on
the just-released
The BAR-D Roundup: Volume Five,
with his poem,
Fill 'em Up
to Overflowin'.
That poem is from Ken's most recent CD,
Cowboys Are Like That. See the track list
here and visit
Ken Cook's web site,
where you can hear tracks from the CD and from earlier recordings.
Ken has performed at events in Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota,
North Dakota and at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada. He is
the current Lariat Laureate at CowboyPoetry.com.
Read more about Ken and find some of his poetry
here
at the BAR-D.
[photo by Jeri L. Dobrowski; see her
gallery of western performers and others
here.]
Posted 4/27
British
Columbia cowboy and poet
Mike Puhallo writes about
caring for a horse in his latest "Meadow Muffin,"
No Feet, No Horse!:
I threw a saddle on Mystify today,
And went out for a little ride,
She pranced along on four sound feet,
And filled my heart with pride.
....
Mike's "Meadow Muffins" are syndicated in a number of
publications. You can also read Mike's weekly "Meadow Muffins" at
the
BCCHS Cowboy
Poets' Page
and at
Cowboylife.com.
Mike has been involved with a group creating a lasting tribute to
rodeo legend Kenny McLean. A life-size bronze statue of Kenny
McLean will be unveiled at Centennial Park in Okanagan Falls,
British Columbia on May 8, 2010. Read more about it
here in our news and at
www.kennymcleanbronze.com.
Read more of Mike's poetry and more about him in our feature
here and visit his web site:
www.mikepuhallo.com.
Posted 4/27
Bill Toti
has some fun with a theme in
I Ride the High United:
I ride the high United
I drive the lonesome planes
We push the herds to Abilene
From various domains.
....
Bill told us, "I do a
lot of flying in my job... I dedicate it to all the other human cattle out
there." Read more along with his poem.
Bill is a recently-retired submarine captain and a
survivor of the September 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon. His narrative
from that experience, "Antoinette," was published in the Random House
book,
Operation Homecoming. Read more and find a link to his story
on his page of poetry.
Posted 4/28
We get a good number of inquiries from people
looking for Idaho poet and songwriter
Wayne Nelson's
poem, Snowville:
Snowville was an albino bull, a legend in his time,
His pink eyes glowed like cinders and his horns spread sharp and wide,
....
Wayne shared the poem and told us how he came to write it:
"Snowville" is a poem I wrote in 1990, or thereabouts,
remembering a rodeo I watched as a kid in Blackfoot, Idaho, where I grew
up. A white Brahma bull named Bluebell exploded out of chute two and
into my memory as the most beautiful example of bovine grace, power and
majesty my 11-year-old eyes had ever seen....
"Snowville" was first published in John Dofflemyer's
Dry Crik Review
in 1991. Since then it has appeared in several magazines and is also
available on my CD, DadBurned
Guitar.
Read more about "Snowville" and more about Wayne Nelson
here.
[photo by Linda Merrill]
Posted 4/29
Welcome
Jessica Hedges
and her poem,
Listening for His Cinch Bell.
She told us about its inspiration, "Growing
up in a ranching family, and marrying into one, it has become a tradition
to wait and wonder where your husband or dad is. This is something that
many women I know, including myself, really struggle with."
Jessica Hedges grew up on a 450-thousand-acre cattle and hay
operation in northeastern Nevada, and now lives with her husband, Sam, in
Soap Lake, Washington on a ranch that he works for.
She has a recent CD,
History in the Barn.
Read more about Jessica Hedges along with her poem.
Posted 4/29
Your support is essential to CowboyPoetry.com.
Be an important part of CowboyPoetry.com,
Cowboy Poetry Week, the
Rural Library Project, and all of
the activities of the Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Receive the
Cowboy Poetry Week poster,
available exclusively to supporters, and
other benefits.
Please consider a
contribution in support of CowboyPoetry.com and the
Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry.
Contributions from people like you make possible this site, Cowboy
Poetry Week, the Rural Library Project, and the Center's other
programs.
Read some
of our supporters' comments
here,
visit the Wall of Support, and
join in
and be an important part of it all!
|
