Introducing America's Cowboy Poets

Image Gallery At the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering: Glenn Ohrlin and D.W. Groethe perform in the 'Trails End Ranch Radio Show.' Jeri Dobrowski

On stage, a cowboy decked out in his best boots and Stetson is wrapping up a rib-tickling poem about chasing the neighbor’s bull away from his herd of purebred heifers. The next performer cradles a battered old acoustic guitar as she stands ready to take her place on stage. And you … well, you’re wearing a smile a mile wide as you enjoy the performances at your first cowboy poetry gathering.

This year, more than a hundred cowboy poetry gatherings will be held on college campuses and in community centers, coffee shops and theatres, around campfires and in rodeo arenas in nearly every state west of the Mississippi. You’ll find numerous annual events in traditional cowboy states such as Texas, South Dakota, Utah, Nevada and Montana, as well as gatherings in Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri. If you live in the south, there’s even an annual Southeastern Cowboy Gathering in Cartersville, Georgia.

Many cowboy poetry events are free to the public. At the annual Chadron State College Cowboy Poetry Gathering in northwest Nebraska, for example, you can enjoy an entire afternoon of free performances by as many as 15 cowboy poets and musicians, then attend a show by a headline entertainer that evening for as little as $10 per ticket.

Cowboy poetry is an oral folk art that’s been around since after the Civil War, when trail drivers bringing herds of Texas longhorns north to the Kansas railheads swapped stories and tall tales around the campfire at night. By the 1900s, the public began buying books of cowboy poetry written in meter and rhyme by pioneer cowboy poets such as Arthur Chapman, Larry Chittenden and Badger Clark.

Cowboy poetry kicked into high gear in 1985, when the first National Cowboy Poetry Gathering was held in Elko, Nevada. Today, thousands of visitors flock to this northeastern corner of Nevada each January to see dozens of the nation’s top cowboy poets and musicians, including superstars such as Baxter Black, Waddie Mitchell and Don Edwards, perform during a three-day celebration.