Rootin' Tootin' Cowboy Poetry

Introduction

It was none other than the late Louis L’Amour, that prolific and world-famous writer of Western fiction, who said: I think of myself in the oral tradition—as a troubadour, a village taleteller, the man in the shadows of the campfire. That’s the way I’d like to be remembered—as a storyteller. A good storyteller.

That is what I prefer to call myself, as well: a storyteller. You see, a storyteller in the classic sense is one who communicates a message through verbal and/or non-verbal communication to someone else. That definition includes the mime, the sports writer, the genealogist, the historian, the poet, the photographer, the teacher and preacher, the songwriter and singer, and the novelist.

It is through this ancient process of storytelling that we pass on to people now living and, hopefully, to generations yet unborn our culture, our beliefs and our values. It is how we explain our origins and our hopes for the future. It is how we explain what things are and how they work and why.

Well, the fact is that I worked at a wide range of jobs in my adult life. Some of them I did remarkably well and in others I managed to survive, while in a few I bombed out or the bottom dropped out (meaning in at least five jobs the company I worked for went out of business). I spent most of my life working as a salesman of various products, but I also spent ten years in full-time ministry as a preacher and writer and author.

I spent lesser times as a journalist, a newspaper editor, a morning radio talk show host, a lab technician in an oil refinery, and as a director of a mental health facility in Texas and one in Oklahoma. And for the last twenty years I have been writing and doing live performances—mainly as a hobby—of my original cowboy poetry and stories. That great variety of pursuits still boils down to storytelling in one format or another.

Frankly, friends and neighbors, I know very little about poetry’s forms and structures and meters and such. I do know that when I perform my poetry across the country that people respond in different ways --- sometimes by hardy clapping, sometimes by knee-slapping laughter and sometimes by tears and sniffles. A few don’t seem to get them, and that is okay, too. I found out in sales and in the ministry that ya can’t win ‘em all. But I’m happy with the results of my storytelling, whether through narratives or verse.

Now, cowboy poetry itself has been around for about 140 years. It is thought to have started among the men who worked cattle on the ranches from present-day Texas to Montana. Often these early writers modeled their poems after those written by famous poets from around the world, as well as from classic ballads and songs.

Among the most popular cowboy poets of the distant past were Lysium Gough, William Lawrence (Larry) Chittenden, D.J. O’Malley, E.A. Brininstool, Henry Herbert Knibbs, Bruce Kiskaddon, Carmen William (Curley) Fletcher, Charles Badger Clark, Bret Harte, S. Omar Barker, and Gail Gardner.

Modern cowboy poets include a few mega-stars like Baxter Black, Waddie Mitchell, Red Steagall, Dennis Gaines, Wallace McRae, Doris Daley, Les Buffam, Jay Snider, Rod Miller, Pat Richardson and Rudy Gonzales.

Waddie Mitchell with Stan Paregien at cowboy poetry

festival in Abilene, Texas in 1992.

Skinny Rowland, unidentified man, Rudy Gonzales,

and Stan Paregien Sr. Photo taken by Peggy Paregien

at the Great Pikes Peak Cowboy Poetry Gathering in

Colorado Springs, Colorado in 1992

Others who are far less known but still very talented include Deborah Coppinger Hill, Harold Carpenter, Rolf Flake, Henry Torres, Yvonne Hollenbeck, LeRoy Jones, Teresa Burleson, Biscuits O’Bryan, Francine Roark Robison, Adrian Lopez, Betty Wolf Duncan, and a few hundred more.

Hey, I’m serious about the large numbers of fine rawhide rhymers out there in America. I am amazed when I attend various cowboy events around the country that I hear men and women who, though largely unknown on the national level, deliver great poems in interesting ways.

The fact that so many poets have come out of the bunkhouse into the light of day may be attributed in large measure to cowboy poetry’s Field of Dreams experience. That took place in 1985. Western folklorists Hal Cannon, Jim Griffith and Dr. Guy Logsdon convinced a handful of modern cowboys who liked to write poetry to get together in Elko, Nevada to share with others. A couple of hundred listeners also attended the shindig in the middle of winter.

That was the humble beginning of The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering held each winter in Elko. They now have several stages going all day and into the evening for the better part of a week, with thousands of people in attendance. There are now scores upon scores of regular cowboy poetry shows—usually called gatherings—in dozens of states from Georgia to California and from Montana to Texas.

The form or structure of cowboy poetry differs little from other non-cowboy poetry. The main difference is in the subject matter and the delivery. Cowboy poetry speaks about cowboy culture, whether of the Old West or of modern times. Today’s cowboy poets typically use rhymed meter when composing their poems. And when they communicate their poems in public, it is usually through oral recitations rather than by reading them. There are exceptions to every rule, including the ones I just stated. And the free-verse poetry of such folks as Linda Hasslestrom, John Dofflemyer and Paul Zarzyski illustrate that.

Personally, I have been writing cowboy poetry since 1991. It came pretty naturally for me, since I grew up loving the old B-Western cowboy movies and their stars like Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, John Wayne, Rex Allen, Jimmy Wakely and Dale Evans. And I also had the good fortune of spending my early teens living on The Newhall Ranch, one of the largest farming and ranching operations in California. My sister Roberta and I happily rode our horses over miles and miles of company land.

I have been word-oriented all of my life. When I was real small, mother was always good about reading books to me and taking me to church. And in early grade school I became a voracious reader of comic books, often reading them while listening to radio programs such as Gunsmoke, The Lone Ranger, The Green Hornet and Inner Sanctum. My journalist teacher at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee got me started writing freelance articles. And, just as he predicted, once I got printer’s ink in my veins I could not get it out.

After obtaining my bachelor’s and master’s degrees, I became a minister and the author of three religious books. As a freelance writer, I have articles or poetry published in such publications as Saturday Evening Post, The Lookout, Southwest Art, The Firm Foundation, Life Insurance Selling, Christianity Today, and Christian Standard.

Plus I’ve had articles appear in newspapers such as The Oklahoman, The Amarillo (TX) Globe and The San Antonio (TX) Light. Then I became a newspaper reporter and then a newspaper editor, followed by work as a morning talk show host and salesman for a radio station. And in recent years I’ve been writing material for my two web sites. All of that word work can be summed up best as storytelling in one form or another.

Later, my wife Peggy and I reared our family on a few acres outside Stroud, Oklahoma. And we introduced our son and daughter to a few horses and cattle. And I got interested in writing Western novels so I joined and became a member of the Western Writers of America, serving as their first historian and also as their PR guy. Then we lived in Snyder, Texas and I attended my first cowboy poetry gatherings. And I was absolutely hooked. I’ve been telling stories—either in poetic form or in narrative form—ever since.

Cowboy poetry is an unusual genre of literature as it deals exclusively with the culture and lifestyle of the cowboy. The form is practiced wherever there are people tending cattle and riding horses, all the way from the backlands of Canada through the heartland of the United States and to the outback of Australia.

Here in the United States, there are scores of highly successful cowboy poetry and music festivals. They can be found from Georgia to California and the Rio Grande in south Texas to the majestic mountains of Montana.

You might want to take a moment to Google online for the cowboy poetry festivals in Lubbock, Texas, Scottsdale, Arizona, in Santa Clarita, California, in Elko, Nevada and Monterrey, California. You’ll quickly discover that these are attended each year by many thousands of folks who are enthusiastic about the brand.

One of my favorite venues is The National Cowboy Symposium & Celebration. It is held at the Civic Center in downtown Lubbock, Texas the first weekend after Labor Day. At the invitation of founder Alvin Davis, I started performing my poetry and stories there in 1991. In the year of 2011, I celebrated my 20th year of performing there.

 Friends, I sincerely hope you enjoy the following poems. And please come back for more.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Ben’s New Filly

The Vacuum Cleaner Salesman

Mail Order Brides

Miss Hattie’s Pleasure Palace

Sagebrush Sam

The Day the Dude Hit Town

Collegiate Rodeo

Tough Time in Tascosa

The Wisdom of Judge Roy Bean

Western Etiquette

Chapter 2

The Coyote Hunt

Christmas Delight

A Tribute to Roy Rogers

Ode to Identical Twins

The Wicked Winter of 1918

Hiring On At the New Outfit

The Cowboy and the Cougar

The Gaseous Backfire

Miracle on Boot Hill

The Baptism in the Potato Bucket

Chapter 3

Romancing in the Rockies

The Big Surprise

A Howling Success

Frank's New Time Piece

Cowboys Ain’t Good Buzzard Bait

The Weather Out West

Pecos Pete

West Texas Winds

Cowboys Tell It Like It Is

A Close Call in Camp

Chapter 4

Life in the Old West

The Cowboy Perspective

Legend of Black Bart

A Matter of Interpretation