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Cowboy Poetry — what's it all about?
Last updated on Wednesday, January 08, 2003
In 1985, some friends and folklorists got together in Elko, Nevada for a downhome event they called a Cowboy Poetry Gathering. Since then, cowboy poetry festivals have been popping up across the West like spring wildflowers. In 1991 there were over thirty of them - totaling seventy days of recitation! - with cowboys from Montana to Arizona picking up microphones and strutting their stuff under hot stage lights.
Southwestern New Mexico cowboy Tom Steele. Photo by Carla DeMarco. The original Elko gathering, organized by the nonprofit Western Folklife Center, has blossomed the most, from a few hundred followers to over eight thousand visitors each year. The 4-day festival claims to be "the largest poetry reading in the free world" and includes workshops, exhibits, and all-night music sessions. The 1991 Seventh Cowboy Poetry Gathering focused on family life at the ranch, with performances by cowboy fathers, cowboy mothers, and ranch kids.
As the popularity of cowboy poetry grows, the media has taken notice. On TV, cowboy poets can be seen joshing with Johnny Carson and looking picturesque in PBS documentaries. Their books, cassettes, and videos fill a 10-page catalogue you can order from the Western Folklife Center. And at least one anthology, Cowboy Poetry: A Gathering, edited by Hal Cannon (director of the Center) has sold over 30,000 copies.
What, exactly, is all the hullabaloo about? Is cowboy poetry folk art, an oxymoron, or a passing fad?
In fact, cowboys have been writing verse ever since they took to herding dogies in the 1870's. Often they put their poems to song, for music was a useful social grace among men who spent long days crooning to cattle and longer nights keeping a lonely watch. In the 1880's, cowboy poems were printed regularly in ranching trade magazines. By 1910, two folklorists had already published collections of cowboy songs and poetry. These included little-known classics like "John Garner's Trail Herd," "The Pecos Puncher," and "The Stampede," as well as verses we might recognize today, like those in the anonymous "Dying Cowboy:"
Oh bury me not on the lone prairie
These words came low and mournfully
From the pallid lips of a youth who lay
On his dying bed at the close of day.
He had wailed in pain till o'er his brow
Death's shadows fast were gathering now;
He thought of his home and his loved ones nigh
As the cowboys gathered to see him die.Oh bury me not on the lone prairie
Where the wild coyotes will howl o'er me
In a narrow grave just six by three
Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie.Oh bury me not--and his voice failed there
But we took no heed of his dying prayer
In a narrow grave just six by three
We buried him there on the lone prairie.The wealth of such poems and songs testify that the cowboy could be a surprisingly literate figure. (In the nineteenth century a tag off a Bull Durham tobacco sack would get any cowpoke one of 303 classics, from Homer to Mark Twain.)
Still, starting with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, the cowboy's voice was quickly overshadowed by a horde of interpreters. Today, novelists, film-makers, and advertisers have assured this hired hand a hero's place in the American psyche. We all love John Wayne. We admire the Marlboro Man. And we grew up watching, week after week, shows like "Rawhide" and "Bonanza." The writers of these shows, however, were not cowboys.
And it was the idea of letting real cowboys, working men and women, tell their own story that inspired Hal Cannon to organize the first Elko Gathering. Cowboys, he knew, had a lot to say and had been saying it, writing it, rhyming it, for years. All they needed was an audience.
They got it. As Elaine Thatcher, director of programs at the Western Folklife Center, says, "At the time, we planned for a small event and were stunned at the number of ranching people who came out of the woodwork in the middle of winter to attend the first Gathering. Cowboys turn out for these events in large numbers, and the sense of community among all these people who share the ranching life is overwhelming."
This sense of sharing is perhaps the best part of a cowboy poetry festival. Go to any gathering and you'll see some sure-enough buckaroos on stage. Look at the audience and you'll get a mirror reflection: rows of leathery faces, bright eyes, tanned skin, and big hats sitting neatly on Levied knees. It's clear that many of the people listening empathize with the poet's experience; they nod their heads, chuckle, and laugh out loud at a sudden memory of their own.
"It's like a reunion for me," says Clay "Thumbtack" Lindley, author of The Cowboy Nerd and Other Favorites. "I see so many friends out there, guys I cowboyed with across the country. Sometimes I don't have the time to sit down and talk to them all."
Lindley, who now works as a range conservationist for the Department of Agriculture in Spur, Texas, is just one example of the modern cowboy poet. His ode "Hormones" is a protest of regulations banning hormonal implants in cattle. With his handlebar moustache and goofy grin, his delivery is broad and unabashed:
Every cowpuncher nowadays knows
What the little implant is called "Ral-Gro"
You stick it in at the base of ear
Makes for a healthy, growthy steerMost outfits use it now and agin
Cause this thing's loaded with testostorin
Testosterone is a hormone that flows through the male
Estrogen flows through the body of the female
These things are as natural as you please
But I won't talk of birds and beesI'm here to discuss what's bothering me.
The European market that buys our beef
Says it's unsafe and we need to turn a new leaf
They've sure been moanin', and lettin' out a groan
Over us implantin' these harmless hormonesOur state Ag Commissioner says he agrees
With the European's point of policy
I can't believe this, coming from this man
I figure he lacks a little testos-toranI've thought of this many a time
And while I'm thinkin', something else comes to mind
"If at first you don't succeed
A political job is what you need"
The government is here to help--indeed!Such insights into cowboy politics are balanced by poetry more classical in form, such as Colorado rancher Bill May's "I Bid the Day Adieu:"
"The sun has drifted down the valley
Toward the Utah line
And on the distant Uinta Hills
Still shines on pinon pine.A scattering of rosy clouds
Are painted 'cross the sky.
A perfect way to end the day;
I bid the twelfth good-bye.As twilight settles around me
A coyote breaks the hush
And then I hear a cow elk call
It's calf, out in the brushMy gaze it wanders to the West
As twilight fades away
Twilight is a wondrous time
I oft' times wish 'twould stay.And then I see the silver moon
Its leading crescent edge.
Chasing the sun across the rim
Beyond that distant ledge.The light of this new moon is brief
An hour and 'twill be gone;
Short time, indeed, for it to stir
The coyote's lonesome song.I think how like the life of man
In search of endless light
A glimmer in the twilight
And then lost in the night.But out in God's Celestial Space
There is no end to day.
We'll enjoy eternal sunshine
If we accept His way.In all cases, it is usually the practical and authentic detail that lets you know you are listening to cowboy poetry. Details like "I kind of hid my chew" when a cowboy asks a gal to dance. Or the concrete images in Jim "Speedy" Shelton's narrative poem "Bullhide Chaps and Memories:"
Yes sir, rawhide ropes and hobbles
I remember all so well
Pack saddles and stubborn hardtails
And a sweaty horse's smell
The jingle of nine star rowels
On a long-shank, goose-neck spur
The slobber of wild heifers
When we burnt the brand in fur
Hard-oak fires, gravy brown
And salt-side bacon grease
Sourdough bread and clear mountain water
And syrup--call it "lick," if you please
Bed tarps and cowhide vests
Tobacco in a little rag sack
Fry them spuds and blacktail steaks
And boil that coffee blackThe range of cowboy poetry, tightly reined in by rhyme, is part of the pleasure. At a recent Silver City festival, the Grand Finale Show included a poem about lawyers, a hilarious bar comedy (smoothly delivered by professional Waddie Mitchell), a poignant eulogy, a historic account of the first round-up, a tribute to the flag, a love story, a graphic description of branding (read by a sweet middle-aged ranchwife in a puffed blouse and purple skirt), and an ironic commentary on drugstore cowboys.
The show ended with the entire audience standing and singing "Home on the Range." (Note: If you're squeamish about appearing sentimental, you'd have walked out long ago.)
Like most festivals, the Silver City event also hosted theme sections with titles like "The Hackamore" (horses), "Hard to Tuck Petticoats into Levis" (women poets), "Them Old Time Kind" (classic poems), and "Whooping it Up" (humorous pieces). Following tradition, the majority of these sessions were free, as are most of the events at the Elko Gathering.
As important as any of the planned performances are the Open Sessions where anyone and everyone recites, and new poets get their start. Here local talents have their day in the sun, and an aging bronc-rider may discover a new career. For some cowboys and cowgirls, courage was never more needed than on the afternoon they stood for the first time in public and recited a poem.
Finally, any visitor at almost any festival can expect to hear some mighty fine music. Cowboys have had a century to hone sharp their foot-tapping guitar-picking, eerily sad harmonica tunes and four-part vocals. When singers like the mellifluous Sons of the San Joaquin begin "Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweed," every muscle in the body seems to relax. It's better than a massage...
Other musicians, like the aristocratic Don Edwards, lace their tradition with blues and swing. Many make a point to revive ballads and songs that should never have been lost. A few may hoot like coyotes while strumming the bass. Everyone of them is having a great deal of fun.
To find out more about cowboy poetry and cowboy poetry festivals, write to the Western Folklife Center, P.O. Box 581105, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84158-1105. Their number is (801) 533-5391. They will send you a list of coming events, with a special brochure on the Elko Gathering. They particularly recommend festivals in Riverton, Wyoming; Prescott, Arizona; Medora, North Dakota; Big Timber, Montana; Durango, Colorado; and Alpine, Texas. For the bigger ones, it's a good idea to call ahead and reserve accomodations. The small ones offer their own cozy informality, free coffee perhaps (boiled black), and some local ranch hand whose bursts of rhyme may surprise and delight him as much as they do the audience.
Happy trails!
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