Cowboy Poets Offer Powerful Words About Honor

The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, an annual festival celebrating western life and creativity, was held last month in Elko, Nevada.

Cowboy Poetry has been around a long time and is more popular than ever. About 6,000 people attended this year’s gathering. You may wonder who comes to this?

Anyone interested in western arts, music, and the lifestyle. After all the cowboy is an icon of the Old West—perhaps the myth of the Old West.

WHY COWBOY POETRY

The 1870s trail drives gave birth to Cowboy poetry. Cowboys herded cattle to northern railheads on the Chisholm and Goodnight-Loving trails. The work was exhausting and there was nothing to do when night fell and chores were completed. 

To entertain themselves and others and to pass the time, Cowboys wrote poetry about their work, the loneliness of long nights, and sang old folk songs they’d rewritten to fit their world.

Cowboy Poetry Book

In Texas, a Cowboy Poetry Festival takes place every year in Alpine. In fact, there are about 200 gatherings in the U. S. each year, and they’re well attended.WHAT MAKES COWBOY POETRY

In this lyrical poetry, you’ll find traditional elements like rhyme, meter and narrative—not often used in contemporary poetry. 

Most of the long-time practitioners of the genre have actually worked as cowboys. There may be a few cowboy poets who’ve never had to throw a saddle over Trigger, but they probably had ancestors who knew how to cinch a saddle and ride the line, or they married into a family with that ancestry.

Baxter Black is considered the most famous cowboy poet in the world. He’s published more than a dozen books, recorded more than a dozen albums, and appeared on TV and radio.

Another famous cowboy poet is Bruce Douglas “Waddie” Mitchell, sometimes called the Cowboy Poet Lariat.

Mitchell often performs his poems with a guitarist providing background music. You’ll find CD’s and books with his work on Amazon, like One Hundred Poems.

Most of us are disconnected from nature. We live stress-filled lives of constant frustration. Try Cowboy Poetry, the simple yet powerful words about living with honor and integrity, may offer a respite from the discord of the world.

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Joan Reeves aka SlingWords: The Word Slinging Adventures of Joan Reeves