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
From Poison Creek to Redwater
FC 11 G-40
77
Kenneth Goss
Chapter Twenty
Prose: Amanda Wallen showed up in the early homestead days. She was one of the first settlers to file on a claim down on what they called HOrse Crick. She said she loaded everything she could beg, borrow, or steal
Trail's End
FC 11 U-01
47
John Curtis Underwood
Winter Morning
The sky is as gray as the glass of the studio window,
Cowboys, Cattle, Horses, and Stuff
FC 11 B-65
52
T.L. Bush
A cowboy was gettin' ready to check into a hotel and he asked the manager if his dog would be allowed to stay with him.
Time Not Measured by a Clock: Cowboy Poetry from the life of a Cowboy Wife
FC 11 J-14
115
Carole Jarvis
The Home Ranch
It's not much for fancy, as home places go.
outbuildings, repair, paint, fences, pride, porch
Spur Tracks & Buffalo Chips: Cowboy Verse and Country Chartling
FC 11 S-19
92
Bob Schild
The Elk Hunter
Hark to the sound of the city,
Welcome to Querecho Flats
FOLK COLL 11 B-78
27
Curt Brummett
Querecho Flats Scoreboard
The people of Querecho Flats are divided into several groups: First there are the members of the Church of the Better-Than-Thou and Pert-Near-Perfect People; the Thinkers (serious); the Non-Thinkers; the Practical Jokers (semi-serious) -
fight, women, gossip, insults
Rhymes Along the Way
FC 11 L-39
54
Robert L. Laumeyer
Young Lovers
Oh, youth of today take courage. Love and long term commitments make. Yes, it is worth all the effort. Permanent homes are the stake. A place where security rules, where love and goodwill can abound. Select well, work hard, and love complete.
Ol' Mike's Philosophy and Foolishness
Mike Oatman
FOLK COLL 11 O-14
153
Anonymous
I'm Special
I'm special. In all the world there's nobody like me. Since the beginning of time, there has never been another person like me. Nobody has my smile. Nobody has my eyes, my nose, my hair, my hands, my voice. I'm special.
uniqueness, eternity, personality
From a Cowboy's Point of View
FC 11 H-52
58
Dick Hays
Me and the Devil
when i die and go to hell What a surprise the Devil will get, Fer he'll find out right quick That he ain't seen nuthin' yet. When he throws me in the lake of fire
The Humbler Poets: A Collection of Newspaper and Periodical Verse, 1870-1885
Slason Thompson
FC 11 T-04
328
Hester A. Benedict
Good-Night
Good-Night, dear friend! I say good-night to thee
Horseshoes, Cowsocks & Duckfeet
FC 11 B-47
35
Baxter Black
Carhartt Cowboy
"Cowboy'en Is Our Specialty"
FC 11 C-58
10
Wade Collins and Seven Mazzone
Shoeing Horses
My daddy used to shoe my horses, when I was short and small. It looked like a lot of work, so I paid no attention at all.
Prairie Song A Meander Of Memory
FC 11 G-44
104
DW Groethe
The Homesteader
From day one, he knew that she, a great, gray granite thrust of a rock, was here to stay. He spent the summer taking team and stoneboat, plucking her brood, delving every inch of the field till it lay clean as wash..excepting that rock. A homesteader, three times the size of his stoneboat. He figured,
Camp and Trail: Incidents of Pioneer Life
FC 11 L-11
14
William Irven Lively
Alkali Joe's Atonement
Silent and grim and forbidding.
Cowboy Poetry
FC 11 S-20
19
Colen H. Sweeten Jr.
Ride 'em Cowboy
Little Glen stood about five foot-four,
What I Learned On the Way to Life: Insights and Concepts learned along the way..
FC 11 J-15
99
Hans "Jake" Jeppson
When I Say I Do, Do I?
This isn't a poem about a beautiful fantasy.
Rhymes of a Rolling Stone
FC 11 S-63
133
Robert Service
The Squaw Man
The cow-moose comes to water, and the beaver's overbold, The net is in the eddy of the stream; The teepee stars the vivid sward with russet, red and gold, And in the velvet gloom the fire's a-gleam. The night is ripe with quiet, rich with incense of the pine.
Songs of the Outlands: Ballads of the Hoboes and Other Verse
FC 11 K-07
3
Henry Herbert Knibbs
The Walking Man
Sunny summer day it was when loping in to Laramie.
Rope and Pan
FC 11 E-02
35
Martha Downer Ellis
Out New Baby
At last.
baby, son, father, mother, birth
Western Poetry: In this land of little rain
FC 11 M-56
100
Jane Ambrose Morton
The story of a song (a sonnet)
When Katharine Bates came West for scenic views, her quest led her to Colorado Springs
Rambler's Notebook: 50 Years of Scribblin': Songs & Poems from the Road
FC 11 A-16
46
Singin' Sam Agins
Farewell
If, you're down and out, and feelin' kind of blue, and there ain't nothin' in the world, for a guy like you to do;
West River Waltz: Western Poetry
FC 11 G-31
42
D. W. Groethe
Same Old Story
Meadowlarks are bunchin' up
Cowboys, Plowboys, and Country Folk
FC 11 R-39
79
Roger Ringer
Prairie Love Song
Come take a walk with me through a sea of bluestem grass waving gently in a Kansas breeze. Let me tell you my dreams as I hold you close to me as the cottonwoods dance so free.
Along Old Trails: Poems of New Mexico and Arizona
FC 11 S-06
19
William Haskell Simpson
Dias Pasados
You touch hands,
Drover Diaries: Original Poems of the American Cowboy
FC 11 N-14
36
Rod Nichols
Crossin' The River
One evenin' the moon had turned golden, the wind had picked up round the trees, I came to this bank of a river intendin' to cross it you see.