Cowboy Poetry: A Definition, Tropes, Types & History
Written by Jeff Streeby, Cowboy Poet
A Definition of Cowboy Poetry
Cowboy poetry is a tradition of work poetry /performance poetry that grew out of the 19th century improvisational entertainment practices of isolated crews of cattle drovers and ranch hands.
Cattle drovers and ranch hands built cowboy poetry.
After a day's hard work, cowboys would gather at the chuckwagon's cookfire or in the bunkhouse (the "ram pasture") to relieve, with extravagant yarns and folk songs, the tedium and stress of their dull, but dangerous jobs. According to D.J. "Kid White" O'Malley, a Montana cowboy who published his first important poem in the late 1880's, popular songs of the day were seized, and their forms and lyrics freely altered and adapted to fit the circumstances and environment of the West.
This method of invention was also frequently used by Bruce Kiskaddon, whose reputation and body of work is such that he is regarded by most cowboy poets to be the Cowboy Poet Laureate of the USA. The renaissance of cowboy poetry in the late 1980's renewed broad interest in many of these early writers.
Cowboy Poets
The earliest examples of American cowboy poetry, which began to appear in newspapers and magazines circulated in the American West in the 1880's, were usually composed by experienced cowboys like O'Malley (a cowboy at the N-Bar-N near Miles City from 8th grade until circa 1909), Kiskaddon (a cowboy from 1898 until WWI and after that an Aussie "jackaroo" until his return to American ranch life), Curley Fletcher (a cowboy, prospector, and jack-of-many-trades who wrote "The Strawberry Roan"), and other lesser-known saddle bards. Around the turn of the 20th century, others became interested in the romance of the western lifestyle and helped with their poems and stories to expand the mythos of the American cowboy.
These poets, although some had work experience as cowboys, were university-trained writers: Henry Herbert Knibbs (Woodstock College, Bishop Ridley College, Harvard) published his first poems in 1908; Badger Clark, another seminal source with many works in the canon and still popular among audiences and cowboy reciters; and S. Omar Barker, "Lazy S.O.B.", perhaps the most prolific of all, as well as many of the other recently resurrected popular early writers in the genre. Since the late 1980's, new names have been added to the rolls of important cowboy poets, names like Wally McCrae (Montana), Baxter Black (New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona), Paul Zarzyski (Montana), Gwen Petersen (Montana), Mike Logan (Montana), Debra Coppinger Hill (Oklahoma), Virginia Bennett (California), and a host of other talented poet/performers from Texas to Canada.
Cowboy Poetry Forms
Cowboy poetry, classic and contemporary, is mainly narrative and its forms rely heavily on variations of the ballad stanza and on the rhymed couplet. The ballad stanza uses a uniform ABCB rhyme scheme across the stanzas and a regular meter throughout:
Away up high in the Sierry Petes
Where the yeller pines grow tall,
Ol' Sandy Bob and Buster Jigg
Had a rodeer camp last fall.
(from "Tyin' Knots in the Devil's Tail" by Gail Gardiner)
The rhymed couplet (here arranged as AABB) is also used as a conventional scheme for poetic musicality:
I'm a-layin' around, just spendin' my time,
Out of a job and ain't holdin' a dime
When a feller steps up an' he says, "I suppose
That you're a bronc fighter by the looks of your clothes."
(from "The Strawberry Roan" by Curley Fletcher)
Although it has pastoral qualities, cowboy poetry is not precisely pastoral as the term is usually understood. Cowboy poetry depends not on an idealized vision of ranch life but rather on unflinching realism and shared experience to create its effects. Most audiences for cowboy poetry are conservative in their literary tastes and prefer these traditional formulae both for poetry in performance and for poetry on the page. Much new work by capable poets working in this style is produced every year. Very little cowboy poetry worthy of note is produced annually in contemporary mainstream forms.
Classic and Contemporary Themes in Cowboy Poetry
Ranching lifestyle (USA/Canada/Australia)
Cowboy values (USA/Canada/Australia)
Jokes and anecdotes (USA/Canada/Australia)
History and time-honored traditions (USA/Canada/Australia)
Cowboy memoir/reminiscence (USA/Canada/Australia)
Poetry of place featuring ranching landscapes (USA/Canada/Australia)
Contemporary Cowboy poetry
Cowboy poetry is celebrated today in festivals and events across the USA, particularly where stock raising is an important part of local culture. Organizations like The Academy of Western Artists confer annual awards for cowboy poetry, cowboy music, cowboy media, and cowboy trades and trappings. http://awaawards.org/
and regret, much like you, that my words were mistaken.
But "forgive and forget" is a course that I've found
keeps my blood pressure low and lets me sleep sound
though there's much to be said against "getting it wrong"
for I, too, am in dread of any new cowboy song
that might ignore what is meant by "Driver" and "Drover"
or the differences found between "river" and "rover"
or lines that attempt to rhyme "liver" and "lover".
If you find after this you're still ready to fight
talk to Cutter, he handles my work that is light.
> grew out of the 19th century improvisational entertainment practices
> of isolated crews of cattle drivers and ranch hands.
You Drove me Crazy!
I was cruizin' the ‘net, just killin' some time,
When up pops a story on Cowboys -n- Rhyme.
So I thought I'd swing in and see what it had to say.
Well I learned a lot about the “Cowboy's Plight,â€
But some of it just didn't seem right,
So I whomped up this Comment to enter the fray.
You see I grew up among cowboys and men,
In a time and an age that'll not come again,
When even dem city kids kicked cans or played tag.
Now cowboy life had its dangers, but best I kin recall,
It t'wernt never quite “dull" ‘cept when mucking a stall,
Unless you were the waddie that got stuck ridin' drag.
But it weren't mention of our “…dull, but dangerous jobs,â€
What made me wanna break out in curses and sobs,
It's that name you called buckaroos like me and my pards.
When a steer goes to market in our modern age,
He rides in a truck driven at “teamster†wage,
But in the 1880s truckin' em was not in the cards.
With a character limit it seems, I must be blunt:
A “cattle driver" is the trucker -- who sits up front,
Calling cowpokes “drivers†makes my old blood siver.
When you're usin' cowboy terms, please get ‘em right,
Else you'll find bustin' into western writin' a helluva fight.
If I'm pushing cows old son, I'm a “drover†not a “driverâ€!
Firstly, this may be one of the greatest responses we have had in a long time, so a big Thank You to you! With regards to what you are speaking to, I want you to know that this error was actually an editing error on our end, not the writer's. The man who wrote this piece, Jeff Streeby, actually used the term "drover" when he first submitted this to us. It was only after it went through one of our edits (which happened to be by Jeff's son) that the edit to "driver" was made. Jeff himself had gone over this piece before we published but it seems we all missed this small, but crucial, edit. Our apologies for this and we have corrected the edit. I just wanted to ensure you that Jeff did have it correct the first time. Thanks again for the response and I hope you enjoyed the piece. You certainly seem to have both the working experience and poetry know how, and we all enjoyed reading your post as well.