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Cowboy Poetry Week
Reproduction prohibited without express written permission
"Waxed Jacket"
© 2006, William Matthews, www.williammatthewsgallery.com
Find information about Cowboy Poetry Week, 2008, in our feature here.
Find the latest news about Cowboy Poetry Week activities and events here.
Cowboy Poetry Week is celebrated each year during April, National Poetry Month in the United States and Canada.
In 2008, Cowboy Poetry Week—the seventh annual—was celebrated April 20-26. For the celebration's second year, in April 2003, the United States Senate passed a resolution, with unanimous approval, recognizing our Cowboy Week celebration. Nineteen states’ governors and other officials have recognized Cowboy Poetry Week and there have been many activities across the West and beyond.
In 2009, Cowboy Poetry Week is April 19-25.
The Rural Library Project is an important Cowboy Poetry Week outreach activity, a part of our mission to serve a mostly underserved community of rural Westerners. Each year, a new compilation CD of top classic and contemporary cowboy poetry, The BAR-D Roundup is offered, along with Cowboy Poetry Week posters, to many rural libraries across the West. It is also available for purchase.
We are honored to have master painter, designer, and musician William Matthews' painting, "Waxed Jacket," as the 2008 Cowboy Poetry Week poster art. Read more about that here.
Posters are not sold. They are offered to libraries in our Rural Library Project and to supporters of the Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry, which sponsors CowboyPoetry.com, Cowboy Poetry Week, the Rural Library project, and all of our programs.
During Cowboy Poetry Week, we highlight our Favorite Cowboy and Western Poems Project, where we invite comments on favorite poems. We also feature our Art Spur project, an invitation to poets to let selections of contemporary Western art inspire their poetry. William Matthews' painting is the current subject, featured for Cowboy Poetry Week.
It's not too early to start planning for 2009!
Get involved: read how you can be a part of Cowboy Poetry week here.
Get your schools, libraries, and community involved! Perform your poetry, donate a book, share your knowledge.
In our feature here, you'll find more information about our Favorite Cowboy and Western Poems and Art Spur projects; some words about Cowboy Poetry; selected references for reading and listening; a link to our Events calendar, which lists many gatherings where you can enjoy Cowboy Poetry; more about The Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry and CowboyPoetry.com; and some additional links.
Art Spur
It's been said that a picture is worth a thousand words...we know many that are worthy of a poem. In Art Spur, we invite poets to let selections of Western art inspire their poetry.
Our fourteenth piece offered to "spur" the imagination as part of Cowboy Poetry Week, is master painter, designer, and musician William Matthews' painting, "Waxed Jacket." We are honored to have "Waxed Jacket" as the official poster for Cowboy Poetry Week, 2008.
Poetry submissions were welcome from all through April 4, 2008. Submissions are now closed.
Selected poems were posted during Cowboy Poetry Week, April 20-26, 2008. See those poems here.
Reproduction prohibited without express written permission
"Waxed Jacket"
© 2006, William Matthews, www.williammatthewsgallery.com
Reproduction prohibited without express written permission
"Waxed Jacket"
© 2006, William Matthews, www.williammatthewsgallery.comWilliam Matthews' painting is the 2008 Cowboy Poetry Week poster art. Posters are not sold. They are offered to libraries in our Rural Library Project and to supporters of the Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry, which sponsors CowboyPoetry.com, Cowboy Poetry Week, the Rural Library project, and all of our programs.
William Matthews has been called "today's Frederic Remington." He earns praise from Western Folklife Center Founding Director Hal Cannon, "William Matthews fashions water and color to evoke the billow of a cowboy's shirt at full gallop, the patina of a well-used saddle, the blistering mirage of Nevada. Simply put, he sees the West with new eyes." Cowboy poet and buckaroo Waddie Mitchell comments, "Willy's work is so dead right and real, a buckaroo can see what is beyond either side of the painting."
William Matthews' work has been featured in gathering posters for the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, the Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival, the Southeastern Cowboy Festival and Symposium, and others. He has painted Don Edwards, Randy Rieman, Waddie Mitchell, R. W. Hampton, Wallace McRae, and many other cowboys and ranchers. Some of those images are included in his landmark 1993 book, Cowboys and Images.
William Matthews' sumptuous new book, Working the West, includes 180 color plates of his Western subjects. The publisher describes the book, "Watercolorist William Matthews has long been hailed as the preeminent painter of the American West. In this new collection of 180 staggering paintings, he captures the full range of western experience: endless skies, high plains, the last working cowboys, the Navajo, the mystique of the Living Desert. Steeped in introspection and connected to land, tradition, and identity, Matthews' work evokes a place that is authentic, anachronistic, and dynamic."
Learn more about William Matthews in our feature here and at his web site: www.williammatthewsgallery.com.
Reproduction prohibited without express written permission
"Waxed Jacket"
© 2006, William Matthews, www.williammatthewsgallery.comThe resulting Art Spur poems are posted here.
"Waxed Jacket" spurred poems by:
Come With Me, by Ken Cook
Love's Devotion, by Diane Tribitt
High Water Mark, by Al Mehl
White-on-white, by Jerry Schleicher
The Waxed-Coat Man, by Glen Enloe
Things I Lean On by Michael Henley
No Regrets, by Merv Webster
Five Senses, by Clark Crouch
Updated 4/25
Our thirteenth piece offered to "spur" the imagination is by Pat Richardson, titled "Sammy." Poetry submissions were welcome from all, through February 10, 2008. Submissions for this subject are now closed. Poems are posted here.
"Sammy"
by Pat RichardsonPat comments about the drawing:
Sammy belonged to Doc Clarke, the famous horse vet in Petaluma, California. Doc used to team rope off him. He heeled and did pretty good for never getting to practice much. Old Sammy was about the nicest mule I ever was around. Doc had to give him a tetanus shot once and Sammy threw a fit. Doc said, "I don't blame him, he's only human." And I think that attitude is why Doc got along with animals as well as he did.
Sorry I don't have any stories about Doc and Sammy saving children from burning buildings or anything, although Sammy did send out Christmas cards to all the other horses and mules that he knew, and sang at rest homes and hospitals, baked cookies and so on...
One of today's most popular cowboy poets, Pat Richardson was born and raised with livestock. He rode colts, worked on ranches, and rodeoed.
Pat's an accomplished artist. He has contributed illustrations and cartoons to The Pro Rodeo Sports News and other publications (including the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering program), has illustrated books, and continues to create drawings. His Will Rogers Medallion Award-winning book, Pat Richardson Unhobbled, Cowboy Poetry, Stories, and Outright Lies, includes many of his drawings.
J. D. Yates and Dick Yates at Phoenix, Arizona
by Pat RichardsonIn addition to his award-winning book of poetry, Pat has a number of CDs, including the new Pat Richardson Strikes Again with Duckin' the Law and Many More, B.Y.O.S. (Bring Your Own Sheep), Pull My Finger; and others. His poetry is included on the 2006, 2007, and forthcoming 2008 edition of The BAR-D Roundup.
Baxter Black once said about Pat's poetry, "If you boiled cowboy poetry down to what's worth savin', this is what the stew would smell like."
Pat returned to the Western Folklife Center's National Cowboy Poetry Gathering for the ninth time in 2008.
Read more about Pat Richardson in Art Spur, in our feature here, and at his web site, www.PoetPatRichardson.com.
Poetry submissions were welcome from all, through February 10, 2008. Submissions for this subject are now closed. Poems are posted here.
"Sammy" spurred a variety of lively poems:
Ol' Muley, by Al Mehl
Mule Whisperer, by Rod Miller
Sammy's Misunderstanding, by Yvonne Hollenbeck
The Legend of the Missouri Mule, by Jerry Schleicher
Molly, by Mag Mawhinney
My Friend Clarence, by Hal Swift
Our twelfth piece offered to "spur" the imagination was by Dee Strickland Johnson (Buckshot Dot), "A Cowboy's Christmas Eve." Poems are posted daily here during the season.
A Cowboy's Christmas Eve
by Dee Strickland Johnson ("Buckshot Dot")Dee Strickland Johnson grew up on Arizona's Navajo and Hualapai (Walapai) Indian reservations, an Idaho farm, and at Petrified Forest National Monument (now Park). She and her husband John live in Arizona. They ranched in the Arkansas Ozarks in the 1970's, where Dee and her children performed regularly at the Ozark Folk Center.
"A Cowboy's Christmas Eve" depicts Dee's son, Tim Johnson. Dee comments, "Tim posed for that scratch board picture of the campfire cowboy. I had him standing there with his back to me for quite some time—took awhile to get those rivets on the Levi’s."
As the Johnsons' many friends know, Tim was seriously injured in an accident on August 5, 2002. He is being cared for at the Hacienda de los Angeles in Phoenix. The family welcomes visits, cards, or emails. You can write to Tim in care of:
Dee Strickland Johnson
3033 E. Devonshire #2023
Phoenix, AZ 85016
buckshotdot@earthlink.net"A Cowboy's Christmas Eve" is available as a Christmas card, with her companion poem, at Dee's web site.
Dee has published two self-illustrated books of cowboy poetry and two historical books. Both Arizona Herstory: Tales from Her Storied Past, and Arizona Women Weird Wild and Wonderful received the Will Rogers Medallion Award.
She has made three recordings of cowboy music, two which include poetry. Buckaroo Bonanza includes the song “Old Hank Morgan’s Place.” which was recorded by Jean Prescott as well. Another CD is now in the pressing process, One More Dance, with songs written by well-known cowboy artists.
As "Buckshot Dot," she is an Academy of Western Artists' Female Cowboy Poet of the Year and has been named an Arizona Historical Foundation Culture Keeper, and has opened for Lyle Lovett.
Dee's art has been featured previously in Art Spur, when "At the Jollification" was a subject.
Read more about Dee Strickland Johnson (Buckshot Dot) in our feature here and at her web site.
Poetry submissions were welcome from all, through December 17, 2007. Submissions are now closed. Poems are posted here.
Read the resulting poems:
A Cowboy's Christmas Eve by Dee Strickland Johnson
A Campfire Christmas Eve by Diane Tribitt
Christmas Out Here by David Althouse
A Cowboy's Guiding Star by Jan Price
A Cowboy Christmas Eve by Wildwood Slim
A Cowboy's Christmas Eve by Joyce Johnson
Night Thoughts by Jerry Schleicher
Star So Bright by Van A. Criddle
A Cowboy Christmas Eve by John R. Yaws
A Cowboy's Christmas Eve by Rod Nichols
...more to come...
Our eleventh piece offered to "spur" the imagination, as part of the celebration of the National Day of the Cowboy (July 28, 2007) was "Great Day to be a Cowboy," a painting by notable Kansas artist, Don Dane:
watercolor 12x18
© 2007 Don Dane Studio
Reproduction is strictly prohibited without authorization from Don Dane Studio
"Great Day to be a Cowboy"Don Dane told us about the inspiration for this painting:
One of the cowboys I had gotten acquainted with my first trip to the Pitchfork Ranch was Dick Sayers. Dick is kicked back on his horse trying to relax or maybe stretch a little while holding his end of the herd during the spring branding.
The cowboy must do his job in all kinds of weather, but when all the conditions are right there is no better place he would rather be then sitting high in the saddle with a good horse between his knees.Don Dane is an award-winning artist, with a particular focus on "cowboys, horses, and cattle." His watercolor and pencil sketches — made often on location, where he also photographs and researches his subjects — provide studies for his oil paintings. Don Dane's images have been featured on many gathering posters, including those of Cal Farley's Boys Ranch Youth Cowboy Poetry Gathering, Saddle Up!, and Silver Dollar City's A Salute to the Great American Cowboy."
Read more about Don Dane and see more of his work in our feature here and visit his galleries at www.DonDaneStudio.com for more.
Poem submissions were welcome from all through July 15, 2007. Submissions are now closed.
Thanks to all who submitted poems and to the judges.
Selected poems were posted at CowboyPoetry.com on July 27, 2007 in celebration of the National Day of the Cowboy.
Top poems were selected by a blind panel of six qualified judges, which included some judges from the 2007 National Cowboy Poetry Rodeo. Judges received poems without poets' names included.
Three of the judges also submitted poems inspired by "A Great Day to be a Cowboy" and those poems, which were not judged, are posted in a separate section.Read the resulting poems here.
A Good Day to be a Cowboy by Jay Snider
What If? by Sam Jackson
Great Day for a Cowboy by Rod Nichols
Brothers Stay Together by Ken Cook
A Moment's Grace, by Jan Price
Partners with the Wind by Glen Enloe
Thank You for the Blessings, by Merv Webster
Read more about Art Spur and enjoy poems from past featured pieces here .
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