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
Thoughts in Rhyme: Volume II
FC 11 M-10
9
E.W. "Roy" Miller
How Fortunate
In this Christmas season, at this time of year.
Crazy Quilt: A Patchwork of New and Collected Poems
FC 11 E-21
95
Elizabeth Ebert
Balld Of The Pasture Gate
My husband claims that pasture fence Should have both strength and summetry, With barbed wires stretched so tightly that Maestros could play a symphony Upon them with a fiddle bow If they were ever thus inclined, It's one of his obsessions, and I must say that I don't mind.
From a Cowboy's Point of View
FC 11 H-52
118
Dick Hays
Th' Boot Camp Barber Shop
Th' boot camp barber shop Is one I won't forget, Th' falling curls, th' delight of th' girls, Why, I can see them yet. Th' butcher stood behind his chair,
Signature of the Sun: Southwest Verse, 1900-1950
Mabel Major and T.M. Pearce
FC 11 M-02
260
Rosa Zagnoni Marinoni
Place Flint Stones at My Roots
Place flint stones at my roots.
More Muddled Meanderings in an Outhouse
FC 11 R-13
26
Bob Ross
The Hermit
Nestled here on Cinnamon Mountain
Round-Up
FC 11 C-31a
1
Ernest Cox
Oh to be a Cowboy
I have never attended a college.
pollution, smog, city, cowboy, The Western Cowboy, dreaming
City Cattle: Humorous Western Political Satire
FC 11 J-06
29
Derwin J. Jeffries
Snowed
There once was just a little news.
Mass media, media, volume,
The Humbler Poets: A Collection of Newspaper and Periodical Verse, 1870-1885
Slason Thompson
FC 11 T-04
235
Sarah Doudney
What Life Hath
Life hath its barren years
Back at the Ranch
FC 11 S-29
24
Colen H. Sweeten Jr.
Echoes
I'm just the third generation
Custer and Other Poems
FC 11 W-02
18
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Earthly Pride
How baseless is the mightiest earthly pride,
On Desert Trails
FC 11 F-03
6
Jewel Finley
Wild Burros
Out where the desert breezes.
burro, desert, wildlife
Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.
Robert McDowell
FC 11 M-54
110
Linda McCarriston
A Thousand Genuflections
Winter mornings when I call her, out of falling snow she trots into view, her tail and mane made flame by movement
Sky Humour
Sid Marty
FOLK COLL 11 M-68
94
Sid Marty
Putting up Wood
Seeing a wisp of grey beside those eyes that blaze with love of living, makes him grieve
love, flirt, wood
75 Years! My Time In Rhyme
FC 11 M-65
12
E.W. "Roy" Miller
God Have Mercy
While this country, we reside in, is the best one in the land; Many things of the negative, are seen at every had. We know the U.S. still is great, and land of brave and free; But she also has deteriorated, in event you would ask me. Our politicians in D.C.,
Bell Ranch Glimpses
FC 11 E-01
111
Martha Downer Ellis
Gryphaea, the Devil's Toe Nail
How fleetingly we live on this land.
past, history, records, fossil, shell, time, ancient history
Red Hills Malarky
FC 11 W-14
13
Sam Wilson
The New Tires
It was late in the afternoon when I left for town.
I'd Make an Awful Pioneer
FC 11 J-12
12
Reed C. Jensen
The Weaker Sex
It's said women are the weaker sex now isn't that a joke, they just move their body with a certain flex and the guy goes up in smoke.
Cowboy Poetry: Contemporary Verse
FC 11 M-43
175
Larry McWhorter
Taylor Martin
I had flat had it!
A Bronco Pegasus
FC 11 L-14
111
Charles F. Lummis
'Bob' Burdete
A tiny, tireless tenement
Confessions of A Cowboy Poet
FC 11 C-52
135
Bob Christensen
Christmas 2003, New Years's Inventory
Did you ever sit down and make a review of all the old hands that you ever knew and all of the ranges that you ever rode and all of the broncs from which you were throwed?
Poems from Dry Creek
John Dofflemyer
FC 11 D-15
23
Listening for Effie Hilliard
Small bunch. Calves push 300 pounds. Frizzled-ends of winter-hair after a month of all-night frosts. Cows thin, ushered-in to the land, press the fence to watch.
Signature of the Sun: Southwest Verse, 1900-1950
Mabel Major and T.M. Pearce
FC 11 M-02
117
Vera Holding
Prairie Brand
I'll bear forever this prairie land.
Cow Country Lyrics
Jodie & Bob Phillips
FC 11 B-51
11
S. Omar Barker
Cow Camp at Night
A mustang snorts on a ridge-top, a coyote cries to the moon,
Songs of the American West
Richard E. Lingenfelter, Richard A. Dwyer and David Cohen
FC 11 L-10
279
Ed Harrigan
The Regular Army, O!
Three years ago this very day, we went to Gov'nor's Isle.
Rodeo Memories: Poems
FC 11 W-23
3
Ed H. Woolsey
Bareback Bronc Riding
When I was just a kid.
two copies