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- Cowboy Poetry - |
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Casey's Corral is hummin' tonight
with the chords of a cowboy's guitar,
and Casey's a strummin' the chords of his throat
as he waits on the folks at the bar.
The Old West still lives! It's alive in the words
that the poets at Casey's have penned.
It survives here at Casey's.
It's alive here at Casey's.
It thrives here at Casey's, my friend!
This photograph is courtesy
of the Park County Wyoming Historical Society. It pictures a group of Cody
old-timers playing poker at the local saloon.
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Got
the income tax time blues? Here's one you might relate
to......
Cowboy poetry has been around for a
long time. It had it origins in the western cow camps in the
late 1800s. While many (but not all) of the cowboy poets
of today are also entertainers who recite their poetry at
"gatherings", the cowboy gatherings are a fairly new phenomenon.
While the classical "Old West" poets may have incidentally
recited their poems, they were first and foremost poets who
wrote for the printed page. this was certainly the case with S.
Omar Barker, Bruce Kiskaddon, Arthur Chapman and Henry Herbert
Knibbs to name a few. Cowboy poetry was popular in the
rural and western communities up through the forties. It has
recently regained its popularity... and this is probably due to
the poets who recite in the many cowboy poetry gatherings across
the West.
For
decades, the readers and lovers of classical poetry have
been the captive audience of a movement that glorified free
verse and would tolerate nothing else. The classical rhythm
and rhyme of Shelley and Keats were no longer "politically
acceptable". Substantially all that appeared in
journals or that was considered by the literary elitists was
modern free verse...and the more like a riddle it was, the
better they seemed to like it. After a 40 year
or so drought, along came today's cowboy poets and the
cowboy gatherings. Many people who were starved for
the classical poetry with rhythm and rhyme ate it up.
It seems that this is, at least in part, why cowboy poetry
has gained such popularity. Of course it helped that there
were/are many talented cowboy poets who are equally talented
entertainers. Reading a good poem is a pleasure, but hearing
it presented by a talented performer adds yet another
dimension to the poem.
Cowboy
poetry embodies both classical poetry and verse...neither form
is superior to the other. It takes a skillful and very witty
poet to turn out verse like Henry Herbert Knibb's "Punchin'
Dough". But Knibbs has also written fine poetry that
embodies the elements of classical poetry such as "Make Me No
Grave". There are cowboy poets that are included in
anthologies of North American poetry; and Henry Herbert Knibbs
is just one of them. His poem, "The Trail Makers" is included by
literary elites (such as Louis Untermeyer) in their anthologies
of first-rate American poems. This is also true as regards
certain poems of Robert Service such as
"Spell Of The Yukon" and "Men That Don't Fit In".
(Both of these poems along with Knibb's "Punchin'
Dough"
and "Make Me No Grave" are featured on
The Range Writers.)
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WEB SITE MAP
This web site is designed so that you can follow one
cowboy poem after the other, with a click of
the mouse on NEXT.....or select a cowboy poem from the following menu.
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CASEY 'S CORRAL is always open ...so come back soon! In the meantime, visit Charlie Russell's Stagecoach and The Range Writers and Rodeo Country. All three of these web sites present complete entertainment packages featuring cowboy poetry, audio, art work by Western artists including Charles M. Russell, Frederick Remington and C. Wyeth, along with historic accounts of the Old West. Book mark what you like.
This web site is
designed by Wacobelle Productions.....
wacobelle@msn.com
No material on this web site may be excerpted, copied, or reproduced, used or
performed in any form (graphic, electronic or mechanical) without the express
written permission of Wacobelle Productions, or the author or artist of a
particular work published herein.
A Contemporary Poem.......
