Cowboy Poets to Gather in Colorado

By Jenny Shank, 1-10-06

	Caption: Yvonne Hollenbeck, one of the featured poets at this year's gathering.

This week the Arvada Center will host the 17th Annual Colorado Cowboy Poetry Gathering from Thursday, January 12 through Sunday, January 15. This event is one of the largest of its kind in the country, featuring dozens of poets from 15 states as well as representatives from Canada and Australia. Besides poetry, there will be yodeling and Western music showcases, and a number of themed readings, such as "Multi-Cultural Roots," "The Land," and "Horsin' Around."

But just what is cowboy poetry? Apparently the definition is controversial among the poets themselves, as CowboyPoetry.com details. The site gathers a number of views on the subject, such as an excerpt from a paper written by Charlie Seeman, the Executive Director of the Western Folklife Center. In "The Cowboy Poetry Gathering: Rounding Up the Dollars to Grow a Home on The Range," he writes, "Cowboy poetry is rhymed, metered verse written by someone who has lived a significant portion of his or her life in Western North American cattle culture." Others have loosened up this definition, as did the 1994 anthology Maverick Western Verse, which according to CowboyPoetry.com included "many poems in free verse and other non-traditional styles." The debate continues to rage about rhyming—one particularly adamant adherent of rhyme is Darrell Arnold, who discussed his views in "No Excuse for Lazy Poets" in Cowboy Magazine.

It's safe to say that cowboy poetry rhymes more often than not, which places it in distinct contrast with the poetic styles currently favored by most literary magazines, including arguably the most influential one, Poetry. Humor is often a key feature of cowboy poetry, though not an essential one. The best-known cowboy poet, Baxter Black, is as much a humorist as he is a poet. (Several cowboy poets straddle this poet/humorist line, as does Andy Nelson, one of the guests at the Colorado Cowboy Poetry Gathering.)

And what about the requirement that cowboy poets be actual cowboys? Many cowboy poets are stretching that rule as well. For example, at last September's annual "Words To Stir The Soul" reading, one participant, Dr. George Russell, read a classic cowboy poem, "A Bad Half-Hour" by Badger Clark. Russell is a dermatologist by day, but that didn't prevent him from donning a cowboy hat and delivering the poem in fine western style, even singing the haunting William Douglas ballad "Annie Laurie." Baxter Black now makes his living from writing and speaking, rather than cowboy activities.

Whatever type of cowboy poetry you prefer, it's sure to turn up at the Colorado Cowboy Poetry Gathering this week.
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