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 of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp
John A. Lomax
FC 11 L-13
27
The Transformation of a Texas Girl
She was a Texas maiden, she came of low degree.
Steering With My Knees
Paul Zarzyski
FOLK COLL 11 Z-5
170
Paul Zarzyski
ANTIPASTO!
The tongue loves ANTIPASTO! The linguini way each button-mushroom syllable - gold
pasta, toppings, dinner
Hot Biscuits: Eighteen Stories by Women and Men of the Ranching West
Max Evans and Candy Moulton
FC 11 E-14
199
Max Evans
Once a Cowboy
Frivolous Cowboy Poetry
FC 11 M-49
17
Al Marquis
Learnin' To Ride
As a boy I knew no fear.
unafraid, wrecks, trip, street, race, galloping
The Humbler Poets: A Collection of Newspaper and Periodical Verse, 1870-1885
Slason Thompson
FC 11 T-04
236
Love and Labor
We die not at all, for our deeds remain
More Hilarious Happenings and Other Cowboy Poetry
FC 11 M-63
115
E.W. "Roy" Miller
God's Plan For Man
Christmas is the time of year we celebrate Christ's birth; But somehow in this age and time, it's meaning's lost it's worth! Exchanging gifts has come to be
santa, parties, gift, crude, pillow, vain
Fair Girls and Gray Horses
FC 11 O-12
16
Will H. Ogilvie
Perhaps To-night!
Perhaps to-night! came flashing through the splendour Of gleaming lights and gems and faces fair, The touching hands, the whispers low and tender, The love-lit glances and the scented air;
Out West to Outback and Beyond
FC 11 W-34
26
Dick Warwick
A Cowhand's Farewell
Boys, I'm awful tired- It's been a lont old haul ; It's itme that I was fired, Let go once and for all. I feel it deep inside me, The doctor says I'm right;
Rawhide Rhymes
FC 11 B-05
109
S. Omar Barker
The Tie-Fast Men
This is the way of the tie-fast men.
hard work, strength, dust, rope, roping, sweat, whims, open range, wide range, nature, blue quail, birds, pronghorn, animals, night, darkness, blizzard, wind, sun, coyote, mesa, cattle, heat, cold, Caprock's rim, dutiful, loop, tie-fast crew, steer, rawhide school, cinches, saddlehorn, pride, vanishing breed, stout heart, freedom
Black
FC 11 D-17
12
John C. Dofflemyer
Indigestion
A prime-time advertisement will assail the empty minds sucking T.V. dinners down before the shrine
Songs of the Saddlemen
FC 11 B-06
27
S. Omar Barker
Dogie Definition
The dogie's a calf without parents nor friends.
He's fat in the middle and pore at both ends, cows, cattle, range, calves
Wind and the Night Monsters
FC 11 H-24
14
Carol Hample
The Flat Tire
It was during the thirties when I was in school, and my Model T Ford worked okay as a rule, but one day Fatty Aamold was going with me to haul ashes away to the dump with the T.
I'd Make an Awful Pioneer
FC 11 J-12
25
Reed C. Jensen
Cowboy's Life
Cowboys now-a-day are antsy they continually like to roam.
Passing Through
FC 11 N-03
24
Howard L. Norskog
Uncle Carl
Fiddle me up a tune old friend, And brighten up my day
More Cow Country
FC 11 E-05
24
Tom Ellinwood
Sonora Ranch Butchers
When these vaqueros butcher out.
butcher, meat, menudo, jerky
Poems of American Cowboys & Nature
FC 11 C-04
54
Bob A. Carson
Friends Parted
When we were parted.
Waddie's Whole Load
FC 11 M-36
70
Waddie Mitchell
Bet at the Bar
It's said every story has a hero, or at least one character that's main
Including cassette
Wild Prairie Roses: A Collection of Verse by North Dakotans
Shirley J. Mikkelson
FC 11 M-11
75
Shirley Sturtevant
Form tide to tide
To the beach "newcomber":
beach, wise, flies, nude, crude, ocean, clothes.
A Little Bit of Texas: A Collection of Original Poetry
FC 11 N-10
25
Rod Nichols
Camp Meet
Old Rev'rend Ike was cookin' that night.
revival, service, confess, lie, wife
Pony Nelson and Other Western Ballads
FC 11 R-09
81
Clyde Robertson
The Home stake
The skin on his face was brown as bark.
A-Movin' West
FC 11 B-70
20
D.J Badger
Country
Don't that hay smell sweet to you At breakin' of the day? Don't that sun just warm yer bones When walkin' out the way? Don't them birds and chickens sound
West Word Ho! The western poetry of Doris Daley
FC 11 D-23
30
Doris Daley
Bones
Three cowboys sit on a split-rail fence. Long on bruises, short on sense. Put them together and what do you get? (Besides three pair o fjeans and a pile of debt.)
Somewhere in the West: Texas Women Who Left a Legacy
FC 11 K-22
148
Linda Kirkpatrick
The Little Cowboy's Prayer
Dear God, this is my prayer before I go to sleep, Can I just talk with you awhile.
Cow-Gals Love Their Cowboys
Jodie and Bob Phillips
FC 11 B-50
51
S. Omar Barker
Bear Ropin' Buckaroo
Now ropin' bears (says Uncle Sid) is sure a heap of fun, and a lot more gizzard thrillin' than to shot 'em with a gun.
Fair Girls and Gray Horses with other verses
FC 11 O-12
dedication page
Will H. Ogilvie
To Hugh Gordon
For sake of the meet and the muster, the hunts in the oak-scrub and plain;