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continued from page 19
private industry) land grabs for mining and
pipelines.
More than just melancholy, cowboy poetry
is a form of stand-up and can be quite humor-
ous, with its puns and its self-effacing attitude.
Jimmy Counts is a Fort Davis local who didn’t
turn up his nose at the mention of the subject.
Counts grew up on a ranch and spent his whole
life doing “cowboy stuff,” he said. “I’ve always
enjoyed poetry, even wrote some when I was
younger. I never kept anything, but now I’ve
self-published a little book. Mine are kinda dif-
ferent than the poetry at an event – usually
short, kinda silly, but always have something to
do with something that happened to me, like
getting thrown off a horse or hooked by a cow.
I get such a kick out of writing them – I get tick-
led when they start coming to me; I don’t sit
down to write one – I’ll be driving down the
road and it’ll wash over me. I get a giggle cuz
they’re just fun. I started out doing them for
drunks in a bar so they’re short – you’re going
to lose their attention soon so the poem better
be short and sweet,” Counts explained.
Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, Idaho, New
Mexico, California, parts of Arizona and, of
course, West Texas, are still breeding grounds
for cowboy poetry. Although events have start-
ed popping up in the East, these are more “fes-
tival-type” events, according to Cadden. What
turns it into a festival is commercialism and
inauthenticity. Cadden and his board of volun-
teers want to keep the spirit of sitting around a
campfire with a cowboy or ranch hand, listen-
ing to stories in an intimate setting without the
distractions of vendor booths and the worries of
how much money to raise. This intimate and
authentic touch makes it personal and is one of
the main reasons for its success. “It’s not a festi-
val – it’s a gathering. I’d rather see it die than
turn into a festival,” Cadden said.
Although we have no way of knowing what
stories were told around campfires thousands of
years ago, we in the Big Bend region do have a
way to visit the cowboy life. We can listen in the
comfort of an auditorium to the poet, yes. Or,
if we’re really adventurous, we can get up at the
crack of dawn and head over to the dead-of-
winter grass in Poet’s Grove to attend the
Chuckwagon Breakfast.** (People in rural
towns back in the day heard about trail drives
coming through and would come to the chuck
wagon to eat – perhaps these were the first food
trucks.) We can stand outside at the mercy of
whatever weather’s in town and watch the sun
pop over the hill as we sip cowboy coffee. We
can mingle with cowboys and stories to the
smell of sausage gravy and baking biscuits. For
a moment we can experience a life beyond our-
selves, beyond the fracture of technology, and
perhaps that expansion may make us fuller and
more tolerant.
* “Starting horses” is a term for a movement
that started about 30 years ago, according to
Cadden. The old way was “breaking horses,”
which meant literally breaking the will and the
spirit of the horse. The new way makes the
horses want to work with you – it makes them
a willing partner. Joel Nelson, whose poetry is
included in another section of this issue, is
famous for his patience while working with
horses.
** The Texas Cowboy Poetry Gathering
sponsors a breakfast for five dollars on both
days of the event - February 24 and 25, 2017.
For more information: texascowboy.com
on-line at: cenizojournal.com
20
Cenizo
First Quarter 2017