Cowboy Poetry: Words of the Land and a Lifestyle
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Cowboy poetry: Words of the land and a lifestyle By Candy Moulton January 8, 1987 – the Tonight Show Topographer, frontier doctor and In- audience might have expected Johnny dian agent Valentine T. McGillycuddy Carson’s quips, but almost certainly met Calamity Jane at Fort Laramie in most in the television audience did not 1875 as he prepared to set off with the anticipate Baxter Black and Waddie Newton-Jenney Scientific Expedition Mitchell. These two – a former large- in an exploration of the Black Hills. Of animal veterinarian and a Nevada the young woman who even then was buckaroo – had heretofore shared their brand of cowboy poetry with the Charles Badger Clark people who understood the lifestyle, but Carson gave them a national family audiences. He shocked everyone platform, and they took hold of it with in the room filled with ranchers and both hands – much like you’d do when business owners, and the town preacher, working with cattle or horses. when he took one prominent rancher’s Black, who signs his autograph custom cowboy hat, punched out the upside down and backwards, had crown, bent down the brim, and let one been traveling the small-town cir- of his poems come to life. (I’ve always cuit for a few years. One of his early wondered if he had to make repara- Waddie Mitchell at the 2017 Rural Roundup in performances took place in Saratoga, tion!) Nevada. Sydney Martinez Wyoming, in 1980 when the president One of the grandfathers of cowboy making a name and reputation as a of the Chamber of Commerce, the poetry is Charles Badger Clark, who hard worker with a soft heart, McGil- local veterinarian, invited Black to published his first poetry collection lycuddy wrote: “She was something be the keynote speaker at the annual 1917. He was living in Arizona where like Topsy in Uncle Toms Cabin, she was chamber dinner. After din- the landscape of the Mogollon Rim and not exactly ‘raised she ner it did not take long for a cowboy good with a rope inspired one growed.’” Black to have the audience of his best-known pieces: “The Glory The same might laughing as he shared Trail,” often better known as “High be said about cow- one poem after another Chin Bob.” That poem spread around boy poetry. – many of them quite the country, took on different verses ribald and not suited for and became a classic cowboy song. Campfre entertainment at Wyoming’s Grand Encampment Cowboy Gathering. Candy Moulton FEBRUARY 2020 ROUNDUP MAGAZINE 11 Sydney Martinez Sydney Martinez Johnny D. Boggs From left, the Western Folklife Center in Elko, Nevada; Jerry Brooks at Elko in 2017; and Jo Kirkwood at last year’s International Western Music Association conference. The Glory Trail A Border Affair the poet laureate of South Dakota in (High-Chin Bob) Spanish is the lovin’ tongue, 1937. His work was published in Sunset ’Way high up the Mogollons, Soft as music, light as spray. Magazine, Collier’s, Scribner’s, Arizona Among the mountain tops, ’Twas a girl I learnt it from, Highways and by Century Magazine and A lion cleaned a yearling’s bones Livin’ down Sonora way. The Rotarian. And licked his thankful chops, I don’t look much like a lover, *** When on the picture who should ride, Yet I say her love words over It may seem that cowboy poetry was A-trippin’ down a slope, Often when I’m all alone — born in 1985 in Elko, Nevada, at the But High-Chin Bob, with sinful pride “Mi amor, mi corazon.” first Cowboy Poetry Gathering orga- And mav’rick hungry rope. – Badger Clark nized by Mitchell, Hal Cannon and a – Badger Clark Clark’s early poetry has roots in Ari- host of other cowboy performers. There Perhaps even better known is Clark’s zona, but he left that state in 1925 and in a school gym, Mitchell, who had “The Cowboy’s Prayer,” which has resettled in the Black Hills of South been writing and reciting poetry since been recited at rodeos, ranch gather- Dakota in a small cabin in Custer State he was 10 and cowboying since he was ings and events across the West for Park. There for the next 30 years he 16, gave his first public performance. decades. Another Clark classic became wrote poetry. The landscape of the But Mitchell and the other perform- a song covered by many performers Northern Plains and Black Hills is ers that year were following in Clark’s since its first recording by Bob Dylan. reflected in later poems. He became footsteps. Gatherings across the West (Check websites for specific dates) Colorado Cowboy Poetry Gathering Durango Cowboy Poetry Gathering Golden, CO Durango, CO January October ColoradoCowboyGathering.com DurangoCowboyPoetryGathering. org National Cowboy Poetry Festival January-February Red Steagall Cowboy Gathering Elko, NV & Western Swing Festival NationalCowboyPoetryGathering. Fort Worth, TX org Jim Jones and Doug Figgs perform at Wyoming’s October Grand Encampment Cowboy Gathering. Candy RedSteagallCowboyGathering.com Cochise Cowboy Poetry Moulton & Music Gathering Heber Valley Western Music Grand Encampment Cowboy Sierra Vista, AZ & Cowboy Poetry Gathering Gathering February Heber City, UT Encampment, WY CowboyPoets.com Autumn July HeberValleyCowboyPoetry.com Santa Clarita Cowboy Festival GrandEncampmentGathering.org Santa Clarita, CA National Cowboy Symposium April & Celebration CowboyFestival.org Lubbock, TX September 12 Cowboy.org 12 ROUNDUP MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2020 his cowboy experience for his original poems. “All the time I was growing up we had these old cowboys around,” he has said. “We didn’t have electricity and that meant we didn’t have TV. We had darn poor radio too …. When you live in close proximity like that with the same folks month after month, one of your duties is to entertain each other, and I suppose that’s where the whole tradition of cowboy poetry 2017 Spur-winning poet Floyd Beard performing in 2019. Johnny D. Boggs started.” Like Clark, who often had his poems Cannon wrote of the roots of cow- “adapted” by other writers, Gail I. boy poetry: “The fact is that the first Gardner battled a constant stream of an estimated 1,500 short stories and cowboy poetry event in Elko where folks who recited his poem “The Sierry novelettes, about 1,200 nonfiction polite society was invited took place Petes (or Tying Knots in the Devil’s articles, and some 2,000 poems. April 3, 1926 when Badger Clark Tail),” the presenters often giving Buck Ramsey cowboyed across West came to Elko and entertained a large credit to “Anonymous” as the writer. Texas until a horse wreck put him in crowd at the Elko High School Gym- Gardner wrote that poem in 1917 and a wheel chair. Ramsey had performed nasium.” it has endured as a favorite for per- with a band before his accident and, After that performance, the local formers who blend their own original once he could no longer work as a cow- paper said of Clark: “There is the material with classic poems or songs. boy, he started writing for newspapers, naturalness of the westerner about The Sierry Petes magazines and turning his cowboy him and about his writing which (or, Tying Knots in the experiences into poetry and songs. proves that his heart not only was Devil’s Tail) His epic 50-page poem, “And as I in the west but has beaten in tune Away up high in the Sierry Petes, Rode out in the Morning” (also known with it ever since it began its human Where the yeller pines grows tall, as “Grass” and “Anthem”), shares labors. He is not an easterner come Ole Sandy Bob an’ Buster Jig, the experiences of a 14-year-old boy’s west – he is a westerner who never Had a rodeer camp last fall. initiation into the cowboy way of life goes east – unless he must do so in Oh, they taken their hosses and during the middle-to-late 1800s in West the line of duty.” runnin’ irons Texas. Texas Tech University Press Above all, cowboy poetry is an oral And maybe a dog or two, published the poem in 1993 under its art form; you can read it, but in most An’ they ‘lowed they’d brand all the original name. cases it’s best to hear it recited or per- long-yered calves, And as I Rode out in the Morning formed. And many of the best cowboy That come within their view. And as I ride out on the morning poets working today are performers as – Gail I. Gardner Before the bird, before the dawn, well as writers. They bring their words The roster of great cowboy poets I’ll be this poem, I’ll be this song. to life as they share the actions of men stretches across the My heart will beat the world a warning (and women) in the cow camp, 20th Century and to the — the branding pen or the cow barn. present. Among those Those horsemen will ride all with me, “I can’t ever remember ‘finding’ who have written and And we’ll be good, and we’ll be free. cowboy poetry,” Mitchell says of recited to small and – Buck Ramsey the entertaining and enduring art large audiences are *** of cowboy storytelling. “It was Bruce Kiskadden, The poetry gathering that started always there. The cowboys sure often called the “na- in Elko in 1985 is now designated by never called it poetry.” tional cowboy poet Congress as the National Cowboy Mitchell’s writing endeavors laureate,” and former Poetry Gathering. It takes place the include his poetry book Waddie’s WWA president end of January each year – a time Whole Load.