FOLK COLLECTION 11: The Skaggs Foundation Cowboy Poetry Collection
Folk Coll 11 is Utah State University's cowboy poetry collection. The collection, originally created
by a generation donation by the L. J. and Mary Skaggs Foundation, includes books gathered
during a fieldwork project in the early 1980s to document cowboy poetry in the U.S. west (see Folk
Coll 11f). From this important fieldwork project came the impetus for the first Cowboy Poetry Gathering held in
January 1985 in Elko, Nevada. Since that time, each January, the Fife Folklore Archives staff take the collection
and Access database (that details each book, poem, author, first line and key words), to the National Cowboy Poetry
Gathering for offsite use. Through University purchases and generation donations from poets and collectors, this collection continues to grow.
Book Title
Composer
Call #
Pages
Author
Poem Title
First Lines
Keywords
Songs and Poems of the Old West by an Old Cowboy
FC 11 S-12
7
James H. Stevenson
The Range
Long years ago we rode the range
Intermountain Folk: Songs of Their Days & Ways
FC 11 S-04
39
E. Richard Shipp
Hinkety, Inkety, Winkety
Hinkety, Inkety, Winkety,
The Humbler Poets: A Collection of Newspaper and Periodical Verse, 1870-1885
Slason Thompson
FC 11 T-04
170
One by One
One by one the old time fancies
Rhymes & damn lies
FC 11 P-34
19
Mike Puhallo
Easter 2003
Ancient wounds begin to bled, when we take up our guns and seek to right a wrong by laying low some other mothers' sons.
Old Stories
FC 11 K-26
98
Jo Lynne Kirkwood
Kanab Creek
Red clay like cracked mosaic Shards with missing grout a slash across this sandstone desert.
Poems by Skinny
FC 11 R-41
21
Skinny Rowland
Convincing Collateral
Now the rancher had a notion, that it was time now to expand, and get a loan for fencing, and more cattle for his land.
Songs of the American West
Richard E. Lingenfelter, Richard A. Dwyer and David Cohen
FC 11 L-10
452
Kansas Boys
Come, all young girls; pay attention to my noise.
Write 'Em Roughshod; Life 'N Such Like
FC 11 G-36
42
Peggy Godfrey
September
Sullen gray Soggy day Severs summer From September Purple asters, gold chamisa Glow like Christmas farolitas Line each roadway.
Still in the Mountains
FC 11 D-18
16
John C. Dofflemyer
Ironwood Revisited
I know the tree dead-standing Blue Oak less the hemisphere I burned two years back, cut and split in-place with twists and burls that spit
Ranch Verses
FC 11 C-09
69
William Lawrence Chittenden
A San Antonio Memory
In old San Antonio city.
Senorita, Gulf of Mexico, hacienda, Eden, memories, song, sadness, loss
Rhymes of a Rancher
FC 11 G-13
33
E.A.L. Griffin
That Springtime Feelin'
Gee, I feel so limp and listless.
spring, ambition, work
Cowboy Poetry: Turning to Face the Wind
FC 11 M-50
187
Jane Ambrose Morton
Grandma's Roses
Songs of the Outlands: Ballads of the Hoboes and Other Verse
FC 11 K-07
53
Henry Herbert Knibbs
On the Range
My pony was standin' thinkin' deep; Can hosses think?
Wind and the Night Monsters
FC 11 H-24
46
Carol Hample
Lady Got Lost
It was during the summer that Lady got lost. But it wasn't her fault; she had been double-crossed. She was still pretty young, just a year or two old, and she tried very hard to do all she was told.
Songs of the American West
Richard E. Lingenfelter, Richard A. Dwyer and David Cohen
FC 11 L-10
294
When We Go Marching Home
We've been upon the border for a couple of months or so.
Texas, cactus, New York, Camp McAllen, soldiers, Mexico
Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads
John A. Lomax
FC 11 L-12
297
The Cowboy's Meditation
At midnight when the cattle are sleeping.
Rattlesnake Annie's Scattered Thoughts and Then Some!
FC 11 P-23
5
Linda Pishion
Smile
Doesn't do much good.
Saddle For A Throne
FC 11 O-13
110
Will Ogilvie
The March Of The Flood
There's a whisper away on the Queensland side of the Barwon a banker, the Warrego wide spread from range to red range;
thunder, dayight, past, camp, rain, death
The Sunlight Kid and Other Western Verses
FC 11 S-09
66
Lawrence B. Smith
Pardner
Here, pardner, shake - and happy days,
West of East
FC 11 H-17
116
Harry Elmore Hurd
Death in Winter
Softly the feathery snow is cloaking the earth.
storms, life, death
Drift Wood
FC 11 B-59
47
Lucy S. Burnham
The Chill of Winter
The winter chill was in my heart, And stark and bleak against the sky The tall trees stood in silhouette, As desolate, alone as I.
Poems, Facts and Fiction
FC 11 O-03
36
Harold Otto
The Pateros School 1981
You have heard the song which had the name they cut down the old pine tree
Sky Humour
Sid Marty
FOLK COLL 11 M-68
66
Sid Marty
Shooting Stars
Voices fall silent one by one The stars are falling through the radio waves Those faces we studied those stories made our own
star, wish, song
What I Learned On the Way to Life: Insights and Concepts learned along the way..
FC 11 J-15
23
Hans "Jake" Jeppson
The Cowboy and the Hippies
How can I tell you about milkin' cows by hand in the old log barn.
A Cowboy's Forty Years of Gathering
FC 11 D-03
34
Chet Dawson
Naughty Gal
It happened one time at a rodeo.
bronc busting, bronco, rodeo