the Cowboy Way
Story and photograph by Rani Birchfield
W
henever I mention ‘cowboy
poetry,’ oftentimes the
response is a groan, or a joke
about people talking with their mouths
full (of chew). Yet one of the biggest
cowboy poetry events in the American
west, at least in terms of quality and
number of performers, is right here in
our front yard.
Spoken word and the passing on of
stories could be as old as language
itself. Although there’s a lack of empir-
ical evidence, it’s not a stretch to imag-
ine gruntings and pointings of cave
people evolving to communicate the
18
Cenizo
difference between woolly mammoths
and squirrels, as they have different
risk factors.
Fast-forward to Earth today as a
modern day Tower of Babel with over
6,000 languages, each with their
nuances and dialects within them. In
our modern world, does the art of sto-
rytelling get lost amongst all the tech-
nology, hashtags and trying to fit
meaning into 140 characters or less?
In the late 19th century the cowboy
became the symbol for the West, the
myths of heroics and adventure con-
trasting with the reality of a life of hard
First Quarter 2017
labor, economic hardship and poor liv-
ing conditions. The Vaqueros amused
themselves in the evenings by singing
and telling tales. These stories weren’t
written down; they were passed verbal-
ly around a campfire. The accounts
were often put to music with specific
meter and rhyme – when something
rhymes and flows, it’s easier to remem-
ber.
In 1985 a group of Folklorists who
wanted to preserve the heritage of
cowboy poetry started a gathering in
Elko, Nevada. They rounded up peo-
ple who knew a lot of the old poems
and brought them to Elko to catalog
the poetry. Attended by less than 1,000
people the first year, the Elko
Gathering gained a following and
turned into an annual event, and in the
year 2000, the U.S. Senate renamed it
the National Cowboy Poetry
Gathering.
The Texas Cowboy Poetry
Gathering rode in on the momentum
of the Elko event. It is still held at Sul
Ross State University where it started
in 1987; the gathering is now filled to
capacity each year. Don Cadden is the
president of the operating committee