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University of - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Great Plains Quarterly Studies, Center for

1999

WHITHER POETRY?

Jim Hoy Emporia State University

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Hoy, Jim, "WHITHER ?" (1999). Great Plains Quarterly. 902. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/902

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. WHITHER COWBOY POETRY?

JIM HOY

As a cultural phenomenon the explosion in high-heeled , silk , popularity of cowboy poetry in the past dozen -has long since become an icon that years has been nothing short of spectacular. represents the very nation: wear a cowboy Until the first full-scale cowboy poetry gath­ and you will be taken for an American any­ ering at Elko, , in late January 1985, where in the world. The two essential working poetry was arguably the one aspect of cowboy skills of the cowboy-roping and riding culture that had not been expropriated into -long ago have been trans­ American popular culture. Certainly the men­ formed from actual work into one of the tal picture of the cowboy himself-big hat, nation's largest spectator and participant sports: . And the idealized, romanticized image of the cowboy (certainly far removed from the low-paid, hard-working hired man on horseback who actually works with cows, horses, and four-wheel-drive pickups) has be­ come, through pulp fiction, television, and James F. (jim) Hoy is Professor of English at Emporia film, a symbol of justice and right, a hero who State University. His chief interest is the folklife of both represents and defends the American ranching, both historical and contemporary, in various Way. Finally, cowboy songs, although often parts of the world, with special emphasis on the Great mistakenly lumped together with country-and­ Plains and particularly the Flint Hills of . music, comprise a well-defined Professor Hoy has published over one-hundred articles, both scholarly and journalistic, and is the author or co­ subgenre of popular music, particularly those author of nine books, including Cowboys and Kansas: songs associated with the of Stories from the T allgrass Prairie, published by the the silver screen. University of Press. Until the Elko renaissance, however, most Americans, including those who lived and worked in ranch country, did not associate [UPQ 19 (Fall 1999): 291·97] the cowboy with poetry. Since Elko, however,

291 292 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 1999 that association has become hard to escape: write. (That part of their job that is not dan­ turn over a rock anywhere west of the Mis­ gerous is often routine, besides which, in the souri River and two or three cowboy poets old days, it was the , not the cowboy, will jump out and start reciting. Or so it seems who was doing the heavy work; it's hard to to my somewhat jaundiced ear. For me per­ imagine still singing after twelve sonally, and I would argue for the movement hours of swinging a nine-pound hammer but in general, cowboy poetry has moved from the easy enough to picture a humming out excitement of discovery into an occasionally a new verse to "The Old " as he ungainly adolescence. The bloom of freshly pokes along behind a herd of slow moving long­ discovered innocence, where a relatively few horns.) The cowboy also had ample opportu­ poets, many if not most of them working cow­ nity for sharing his work. It seems a natural boys or ranchers performing for an audience inclination in many occupations, from coal that also was chiefly from ranch country, has miners to computer programmers, to want to been succeeded by a sprawling growth of popu­ recap the day's labor over a of socializing. larity that has seen both an increase in audi­ For the working cowboy, many of them ex­ ence and also the emergence of a sizeable cadre cellent storytellers, that opportunity took of practitioners of mediocre talent whose con­ place around the on a trail drive nection to actual cattle work is tenuous at or in the bunkhouse on the ranch. There the best. This situation is not all bad, by any means, events of the day would trigger memories of for if cowboy poetry, as an art form, folk or previous episodes of bucking horses or ringy otherwise, is to remain vital it must change cows. Some of the more poetically inclined and grow. But as a purist, trained by my father hands would transform these episodes into and uncle to note with quiet scorn any preten­ verse, while the more musical would often tiousness in the realm of things cowboy and by set the verse to song. That, at least, is what my profession to flinch at cliche and bad happened in the late nineteenth century with rhyme, I find the current status of cowboy D. J. O'Malley's "When the Work's All Done poetry a mixed bag-some striking innova­ this Fall" and Jack Thorp's "Little Joe the tion, some excellent traditional work, a lot of " and with Gail Gardner's "Syrie competent (if uninspired) verse, and some Peaks" and Curley Fletcher's "Strawberry downright embarrassments. (But then I reckon Roan" in the early twentieth. These songs, one could make a similar judgment about any along with many others, entered the folk tra­ poetic genre.) dition as anonymous verses, picking up all sorts Given my bent for historical rather than of regional variants before their authorship theoretical criticism, I would like first to take was re-established. At other times, as with a brief look backward before focusing on my Frank Maynard and "The Cowboy's Lament," personal assessment of the contemporary state a folk song ("The Bad Girl's Lament," in turn of cowboy verse. I have heard Guy Logsdon, derived from "The Unfortunate Rake") served one of the leading authorities on cowboy verse as the inspiration for a poem about the cow­ and music, say that no other occupational boy experience.! group in this country has composed as many Maynard's lyrics, written in 1876, provide poems and songs as has the cowboy. It really perhaps the earliest documented composition isn't surprising when you consider that cow­ of cowboy verse, although undoubtedly drov­ boys have great source material (they love the ers had begun singing "The Old Chisholm excitement and occasional danger of their Trail" some years earlier. Whether set to mu­ work, much of which occurs amid the beauties sic or not, by the end of the century cowboy of nature) and they have, despite the rigors verse in the oral tradition permeated , and long hours, sufficient leisure in which to while individual poems were often published WHITHER COWBOY POETRY? 293

in newspapers or livestock journals. By the inner drive but instead democratically: "I heard turn of the century, according to the bibliog­ Baxter, and I thought to myself, 'I can do that, raphy in Hal Cannon's Cowboy Poetry: A Gath­ too.'" And so they have, but not nearly so ering, some half dozen authors had published well. collections of their verse.2 The first decade of Which is not to say that all good cowboy the twentieth century saw three more such poetry has already been written and that no volumes published, in addition to Jack Thorp's newcomers need apply to the guild. But it is to seminal anthology (1908) and John Lomax's say that as more and more join in the venture, first comprehensive collection (1910).3 The especially those with limited experience in the popularity of verse and song among working subject matter and/or pedestrian ability in cowboys is documented in Lomax's account of poesy, the overall quality of cowboy verse must the singing contests that occurred on necessarily be diluted. At the same time, the in the Southwest where cowboys would take work of the best poets will stand out in even turns, each singing a complete song without greater relief than previously. Think, for in­ repeating an earlier one until all but one man stance, of the Renaissance fad of sonneteering. had been "sung down." These contests, Lomax Literally hundreds of suffering lovers were in­ attests, would sometimes last the night distinguishably freezing and burning in four­ through.4 teen lines of iambic pentameter all over the Despite the fact that poetry was widespread place, all of which made the gems of Sidney throughout range country in the early years of and Shakespeare shine even brighter. So, too, this century, that aspect of cowboy life did the hundreds of subsequent attempts to incor­ not, until Elko, find its way into the broad porate the latest morning-coffee-time joke into public awareness in the way that other aspects cowboy verse have made Wally McRae's "Re­ of cowboy life had. Cowboy poets continued incarnation" even more remarkable. to publish their collections throughout the first A large part of the popular appeal of cow­ half of the century, but only a few authors boy poetry, hearing it as well as writing it, is (Badger Clark, S. Omar Barker, Henry Herbert its accessibility: it rhymes, it has rhythm, it Knibbs) found mainstream eastern publishers. tells a story, you can understand it. It is, in The rest, as has always been the norm in this other words, recognizable as poetry. It's tradi­ field, published privately, in livestock jour­ tional, not innovative. Nothing postmodern nals or with small regional presses. Undoubt­ about cowboy poetry. Or at least there wasn't edly, however, the most prevalent form of until the 1990s. Just as there were a few "real transmission of cowboy verse, again until Elko, poets" among the myriad of Renaissance son­ was surely oral tradition. neteers (and just as there are a few "real poets" Beginning in 1985 the mushrooming of among the hundreds of MFAs in university cowboy poetry gatherings throughout the writing programs), so too there have always West, along with the highly visible success of been a few "real poets" among the host of , gave cowboy poets access to a cowboy versifiers. And it is these "real poets," larger popular audience through public per­ no matter in what genre they scribble, whose formance, radio and television, books, and au­ originality of mind will manifest itself in form, diotapes (the latter two usually self-financed). content, and mood, often to the discomfort Whether or egg, these increased op­ and disapproval of the establishment. On the portunities have unquestionably resulted in a other , without the sometimes disquiet­ large increase in the number of poets eager to ing effects of innovation an art form grows share their work. I dare say many of these new stale and moribund. Just how many times by practitioners (in a half dozen cases I have it how many different people can the story of from their own lips) were inspired not by any faithful Old Paint be retold in ballad stanza 294 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 1999 before a terminal glaze one's eyes? Even is life itself, is most evident in the poem classics grow wearisome: "If I hear 'The Straw­ "Yevgeny Alexandrovich Yevtushenko­ berry Roan' one more time ..." growls Ne­ Cowboy Poet," written after Yevtushenko's ap­ braska poet Howard Parker, his voice trailing pearance at Elko. Paul's work seems to try to off. wrench cowboy poetry into the broader realm Thus by five or six years after the first Elko of "real" poetry much the same way that Donne gathering some of the more restless minds attempted to wrench together the physical and among cowboy poets were feeling as con­ metaphysical worlds.6 stricted as a longhorn in a feedlot pen. The work of some traditionalists, however, Free verse began to pop up here and there at transcends the limits of the genre, rendering gatherings, as did poems about environmental heartfelt emotion and humor and love of the issues or topics and language that could be land and the life with freshness and honesty. thought not conducive to family values (such Among the best of these is Montana rancher as Paul Zarzyski's expressive bareback bronc Wallace McRae, whose perception and sensi­ "April Showers"), often to the disapprobation tivity defies .7 Another is J. B. and consternation of traditionalists such as Allen, a working cowboy from Whiteface, Alvin Davis, originator of Lubbock's annual , whose verse, usually typed out in all National Cowboy Symposium and Celebra­ capital letters, is as tough and rugged as its tion. John Dofflemyer's journal, Dry Crik Re­ author. 8 view, publishes not only free verse but also a Two Texas poets who, like Zarzyski, bring number of issues on environmental topics. Dry innovative minds to cowboy poetry but with Crik Press also published Rod McQueary's more connection to traditional subject matter Blood Trails, a collection, with Bill Jones, of deserve consideration. Both the late Buck Vietnam War poems. Vess Quinlan, who had Ramsey and Andy Wilkinson have won West­ been reciting his poetry for years to apprecia­ ern Heritage Awards from the National Cow­ tive audiences, got some quizzical looks when boy Hall of Fame for their music, but both also he published a collection and his readers dis­ write nonmusical verse. Ramsey's epic poem covered, as his auditors hadn't, that, although And as I Rode Out on the Morning, which be­ there was some internal, his poems had no end gins with his often anthologized and recited rhyme.s "Anthem," is a psychologically profound com­ Among the most enthusiastic champions ing-of-age narrative written in a stanzaic form of originality in cowboy verse is Paul Zarzyski, modeled after Pushkin. Among his shorter the self-described Polish Hobo Rodeo Cow­ work "Christmas Waltz" crisply captures the boy Poet. Paul can use rhyme to great effect, spirit of both cowboys and the holiday with­ but he also writes freewheeling verse that ­ out falling into the sentimentality that, in the tivates audiences when he performs it. Free hands of run-of-the-mill versifiers, often af­ verse, Paul says, is like the and flicts both.9 rhyme like fenced pastures, both part of ranch­ Wilkinson's poems and songs documenting ing heritage. Zarzyski serves no master but his the life of his great-uncle, legendary Texas muse, and his latest collection, provocatively rancher Charlie Goodnight, provide a model, and postmodernly entitled I Am Not a Cow­ particularly of what contemporary cowboy boy (see gallery of poems that follows article), songs should be. lO They are neither macho nor is indeed cowboy poetry at its finest, although maudlin but instead reflect the author's drive the topics range from rodeo to South African to claim some part of the spirit of one of the apartheid to the Holocaust Museum in Wash­ great pioneer cattlemen in American history. ington, D.C. Paul's credo, that cowboy poetry Whatever revisionist historians might make is a state of mind, not a format, and that poetry of him, no one can doubt the courage or the WHITHER COWBOY POETRY? 295 vision of Goodnight. Wilkinson does not NOTES flinch from portraying warts, specifically Goodnight's acknowledged mastery of pro­ 1. Jim Hoy, "F. H. Maynard, Author of The fane language. Thus my ears jarred at Lubbock Cowboy's Lament,'" Mid-America Folklore 21, no. 2 (fall 1993): 61-68. in 1996 when I heard a singer there render 2. Hal Cannon, ed., Cowboy Poetry: A Gather­ Wilkinson's (and Goodnight's) "goddamned ing (, Utah: Gibbs Smith, 1985). Pecos River" as "doggoned Pecos River." 3. N. Howard "Jack" Thorp, Songs of the Cow­ Perhaps as much as anything, that episode boys (1908; reprint, Cambridge, Mass.: Applewood bruught home to me the loss to cowboy po­ Press, 1993); John A. Lomax, Cowboy Songs and Other Ballads (1910, reprint, New York: etry occasioned by its burgeoning popularity Macmillan, 1934). Prior to 1900, collections of and growing number of practitioners. As with cowboy poetry had been published by Wallace D. rudeo, once a sport of hard-drinking misfits Coburn, Captain Jack Crawford, William Devere, whose moral reputations were on a par with Harry Ellard, L. Gough, and Nathan Kirk Griggs. those of hoboes but that now is a family en­ In addition to Thorp and Lomax, Robert Carr, Captain Jack Crawford, and Joseph Mills Hanson terprise with its own chapter of the Fellowship published collections of their work during the first of Christian Athletes, so cowboy poetry, de­ decade of the century. spite Guy Logsdon's The Whorehouse Bells Were 4. John A. Lomax, Adventures of a Ballad Hunter Ringing and Other Songs Cowboys Sing, runs (New York: Macmillan, 1947), pp. 48-49. the risk of becoming domesticated and 5. Vess Quinlan, The Trouble with Dreams (Ketchum, Idaho: Wind Vein Press, 1990). tame. 11 But just as early rodeo needed organi­ 6. Paul Zarzyski, I Am Not a Cowboy (Lemon zation and discipline in order to grow into its Cove, Calif.: Dry Crik Press, 1995), and Roughstock present popularity, so cowboy poetry has ben­ Sonnets (Kansas City, Mo.: Lowell Press, 1989). efited from its larger, more diverse audience. 7. Wallace McRae, It's Just Grass and Water And, just as ranch have taken the (Spokane, Wash.: Oxalis, 1986), and Things of In­ trinsic Worth (Bozeman, Mont.: Outlaw Books, sport back to its folk-game roots at the same 1989). time that professional rodeo continues to be­ 8. J. B. Allen, Water Gap Wisdom (Whiteface, come more polished (both directions viable Tex.: n.p., 1990). and desirable), so I believe the best cowboy 9. Buck Ramsey, And as I Rode Out on the Morn­ poets will take cowboy poetry down two paths ing (Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, 1993). 10. Andy Wilkinson, Charlie Goodnight: His Life in the future: the innovators will expand the in Poetry and Song (Lubbock: Grey Horse Press, possibilities for the genre, while the tradi­ 1994). tionalists will preserve the best of the past. 11. Guy Logsdon, The Whorehouse Bells Were And the poetasters will tag along in great Ringing and Other Songs that Cowboys Sing numbers, as they always have. (Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989).

GALLERY OF COWBOY POETRY FOLLOWS ON NEXT PAGE 296 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 1999

GALLERY OF POEMS

(FROM "I AM NOT A COWBOY" BY PAUL "REFLECTIONS ON SAM WALTER Foss' ZARZYSKI) ADVICE" BY WALLACE McRAE

Let's make this poem cowboy and make up Now... some Bein' a friend of man's the thing, for the poet, who tries but just can't quite So other poets tell. swallow hard enough his joy I'd rather live back off a ways. as four more quarter horse quarter note And let them go to hell. hooves step their first Rosebud-with-Cody For ... sorrel stroll around our corral. Them folks that drive 'round nowadays Don't fit in Foss' plan. You got to live back off the road (FROM "DIPLOMAS" BY]. B. ALLEN) To be a friend of man.

DON'T TALK TO ME OF, "COWBOYIN", WHEN, YOUR HORSE IS FAT AS MUD! "COMMENTS ON COWBOY POETRY CRITICS" YOUR HAT AND , PLUMB SPOT- BY WALLACE McRAE LESS, AND, NOT A TRACE OF BLOOD! "Deep from the wellsprings of culture." "From hidden YOUR APPAREL, AND YOUR VISAGE, seeds these anthems have sprung." ARE, BOTH, AWAY TOO NEAT, "Subtle roots nurture wildflowers." "From TO SPEAK, WITH CARNEL KNOWLEDGE, complexity 'BOUT THEM BEASTS WITH CLOVEN plain words are wrung." FEET! "Ta dum, Ta dum pounds the meter." THE NOM DE PLUME OF "COWBOY", "Shallow "" OR "BUCKAROO", predictable rhyme." ARE, GLIBLY, TAKEN ON BY FOLKS, "Dogie doggerel stampede." "Bunkhouse WHO'VE NEVER HAD A "CLUE". bard pap." "Ho hum, Humpty bumpkin time." BUT, THEM THAT'S STAYED AND EARNED 'EM, A caution to those who'd dismiss us; HOLD THOSE TERMS IN HIGH ESTEEM, or praise our work as sublime FOR, LIKE THEM "DOC'S" AND LAW­ And heap too much praise, or too little, yERs, upon a cowpuncher's rhyme. THEY HAVE WORKED, TO GAIN THEIR DREAM!! WHITHER COWBOY POETRY? 297

GALLERY OF POEMS

"PASSING THE " BY VESS QUINLAN (FROM "SADDLIN' -UP TIME" BY ANDY WILKINSON) How small he was And how he struggled When the morning night air was marble we With the work; breathed, He irrigated, fed, doctored, Heavy and smooth and as cold as the breeze And learned, as I had, That skitters across the new snow-covered The difference between right and close, plains, Then sought my approval One hand on the hom and the other, the To validate his knowing. We stepped aboard , young bucks in our prime, How strange it seems, Salty as the Pecos at saddlin' -up time. And how right, That a simple passage Though I've lived for this moment most all Of time has brought of my life, Us here where I finish Beginnings, not endings, put the edge on my This day of favorite work knife; And look to my son And I've cursed too damn much and I've For his approval. never prayed well And it may be God figures to send me to Hell, Riding drag for the Devil to pay for my (FROM "ANTHEM" BY BUCK RAMSEY) crimes, But I'm damned if I'll go 'fore saddlin'-up And in the morning I was riding time. Out through the breaks of that long plain, And leather creaking in the quieting Would sound with trot and trot again. (FROM "COMMUNION" BY WALLACE MCRAE) I lived in time with horse hoof falling; I listened well and heard the calling Our bodies are this fertile land. The earth, my mother, bade to me, This water is our blood. Though I would still ride wild and free. Our plains form our communion. And as I flew out on the morning, Our god's organic mud. Before the bird, before the dawn, I was the poem, I was the song. Your blasting rends our very flesh. My heart would beat the world a warning­ Your mining cuts our veins. Those horsemen now rode all with me, Our fly-blown bloating bodies And we were good, and we were free. Lie piled upon the plains.

* All poems and excerpts of poems appear here with permission from the cowboy poets.