Cowboy Poetry: A Gathering

By Hal Cannon

Book Overview

This collection of poems was chosen from among 10, 000 gathered from cowboy reciters, ranch poets and from a library of over 200 published works of cowboy verse. One third of the poems are classics that have proven their vitality by having lived in the hearts and minds of cowboys and ranchers for decades. The remaining two-thirds are new, created within the last few years.

Most cowboy poems speak of real events and people, from bucking horses and cagey cows to old Stetson hats and long winter travels. Although they focus on the ordinary stuff of life, their truths . . . seem no less eternal than those penned by William Shakespeare. Some cowboy poems are bust-a-gut funny; a few are downright dirty . . . most carry an honest, primitive power.

--Michael Riley, TIME Magazine

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0879052082
• ISBN13: 9780879052089
• Release Date: December 2007
• Publisher: Gibbs Smith
• Length: 201 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 4.2" x 6.7"
• Age Range: 18 years and up

Customer Reviews

Folksy and earthy and wise

I've read only one other book of cowboy poetry so far (Cowboy Poetry: The Reunion), and I enjoyed this one just as much as I did that one. This book has more of the older poems by some cowboys who have long ago ridden off into the proverbial sunset, but also contains poems by some contemporary ranchers and cowhands. What I like about this genre is that the folks who write the poetry are working ranchers, farmers, and cowboys. Their poetry, therefore, is straightforward and rings true. Reading some, you can almost taste the dust. These folks have a hard life, yet one they love. Yet they express themselves so beautifully that it sometimes brings a tear to my eye. I'll take this kind of poetry over some of the weirdness you read in so-called literary magazines any day!

A broad-based collection of the best in the genre.

As someone who became interested in cowboy poetry in only the last few years, I've found this collection to contain some of the best authors, both old and new. The old cowboy poetry always rhymed, and often had the cadence you feel while horseback, chasing a herd of cows. It was politically conservative, simple, and often written in a wistful style that recognized the changing nature of the American West. This collection does the genre proud. Its list of authors provides a starting point for further excursions in this art form. Much of the new cowboy poetry has gone the way of poetry in general, consisting of long-winded liberal whines full of obscure and meaningless, but politically-correct, allusions. This book has none of that, and meets the criterion for poetry taught me by my first school teacher in an old one-room schoolhouse, "It ain't much of a poem, if it don't rhyme".