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
Cowboy Poetry: Turning to Face the Wind
FC 11 M-50
136
Jane Ambrose Morton
Washing Up
Horseshoes, Cowsocks & Duckfeet
FC 11 B-47
179
Baxter Black
Midnight at the Oasis (Bar)
The Columbine Remembers
Anna Bowie May
FC 11 M-26
15
Frances M. Wheeler
Pretend Mothers
There are some wonderful folk I happen to know
motherhood
Poems of American Cowboys & Nature
FC 11 C-04
72
Bob A. Carson
Land of Mystery
A wild land of mysteries.
Cowboy Love Poetry: Verse from the Heart of the West
Paddy Calistro, Jack Lamb, Jean Penn
FC 11 C-36
19
Robert V. Carr
That There Girl
It's that there girl 'most all the time; Fer workin' I hain't worth a dime.
Between Earth and Sky - Poets of the Cowboy West
Anne Heath Widmark
FC 11 B-40
192
Drummond Hadley
Juan's Last Trail
There's old Juan walking along the ridgeline.
Cowboy Poetry: Contemporary Verse by Duke Davis
Janice and Mason Coggin
FC 11 D-10
124
Duke Davis
Chopo
I was visitin' my ol' pard, Mike Martire.
Singing Cowboy: A Book of Western Songs
Margaret Larkin
FC 11 L-03
151
Ten Thousand Cattle
Ten thousand cattle, gone astray, Left my range, and traveled away.
Cow Country
FC 11 E-04
10
Tom Ellinwood
Apache Brave
The odds he fought were much too high.
Apache, land, defend, homeland
Horse-Thief Gulch
FC 11 H-07
56
Samuel Harkness
Apocrypha
Amy Franklin is eighty-two years old.
character, memory, storytelling, blind, blindness,
The Collected Verse of A.B. Paterson: containing The Man from Snowy River
FC 11 P-08
96
A.B. "Banjo" Paterson
Daylight is Dying
The daylight is dying, away in the west
Rawhide Rhymes
FC 11 B-05
27
S. Omar Barker
Bear Ropin' Buckaroo
Now ropin' bears (says Uncle Sid) is sure a heap of fun.
rope, roping, danger,
Cowboy Poetry: Classic Rhymes by S. Omar Barker (1894-1985)
Jodie and Bob Phillips
FC 11 B-44
40
S. Omar Barker
His Night-Herd Pardner
Oh, there's pardners good fer daytime and there're pals that's meant fer nights.
Poetry of Skinny Rowland, Complete Works to 1993
Skinny Rowland
FOLK COLL 11 R-49
45
Skinny Rowland
Mountain Mystery
As I sit here all alone, on this cold and wintery night, beside the old wood heater, and the glowing coal oil light.
mountain man, work, night
Intermountain Folk: Songs of Their Days & Ways
FC 11 S-04
41
E. Richard Shipp
San Gabriel Mission
In the land of the setting sun,
Rhymes & damn lies
FC 11 P-34
49
Mike Puhallo
The strenuous life
The round corral is a sheet of ice, it seems winter ain't quite gone.
Shorty's Saloon
FC 11 R-07
Johnny Ritch
Shorty's Saloon
By the trails to the past, on the Plains of no Care.
Illustrated by Charles M. Russell
Poet of the Big Horns
FC 11 R-15
81
Don Rowland
Christmas
Three little heads in three little beds
Drover Diaries: Original Poems of the American Cowboy
FC 11 N-14
78
Rod Nichols
Llano
They camped by the Llano; it'd rained the whole day. Tweren't nuthin' weren't soggy or damp. No use to be lookin' fer wood that would burn, they settled into a cold camp.
West River Waltz: Western Poetry
FC 11 G-31
24
D. W. Groethe
A Prickly Time Out
Dropping down, Workin' the bottom strand of a four wire
Rhymes o' a Driftin' Cowboy
FC 11 H-01
84
Chuck Haas
My Pard
He died today! My pard...a noble friend!
horse
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.
Western Poems
FC 11 R-02
25
Col. Charles D. Randolph "Buckskin Bill"
Buckskin Bill's Farewell
Goodbye old friends.
Harry Tales: Volume I
FC 11 H-23
8
Les Harry
Remembrance
It's just a note to let you know..
memories, past, life, smiles, smiling
Just More Thinking
FC 11 S-69
95
Georgie Connell Sicking
Dust Devils
When the dust devils dance on the hard pan, laughing in fendish glee. Saying look what the politicians have done for you and me.