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 Saddlemen
FC 11 B-06
108
S. Omar Barker
Cowboy Counsel
Some claims the way to ride a bronc is slap 'im with yer hat.
bronc riding, bronco riding, bronc busting, advice, Dee Bibb
Poems from Dry Creek
John Dofflemyer
FC 11 D-15
15
April Sunday
My Red Bud shield thickening with green heart-shaped leaves rooted between me and horses grazing.
Back at the Ranch
FC 11 S-29
69
Colen H. Sweeten Jr.
Rural Hospitality
Half afraid, I put my knuckles
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
36
Sean Sexton
Sketches of Georgia, 70 MPH
The sky at twilight, well past the border, is pink as a pink bedsheet. There's a change in feeling at the state line, difference in the body politic, or perhaps history's grain running a different direction.
road, fruit stand, history
RU Lazy 2?: The Cowboy Poetry of Ira Cowpoke
A.B. Nelson
FC 11 N-08
29
Ira Cowpoke
The Examination
To recount this here experience.
Where Prairie Flowers Bloom And Other Poems
FC 11 H-33
92
Yvonne Hollenbeck
The Little Red Geranium
The church that day was crowded.
service, flowers, pastor, God, plants, red, wartime
Riders of the Stars
FC 11 K-05
47
Henry Herbert Knibbs
The Tramp
Yonder upon the road he stands.
tramp, travel, wander, dreams, adventure, quest, hope
Flo! Don't Write a Book About It!
FC 11 P-19
Jerry Palen
not poetry
Songs from the Sage Brush
FC 11 P-03
7
Katherine Fall Pettey
Contentment
A little 'dobe casa in the Plainsland heat A wife and brown-eyed baby, a guitar so sweet a chili patch, a burro and a goat or two
life
Buck Ramsey, Texas Spirit
David Kelley
FOLK COLL 11 R-47
78
Kylie Dunn
Unnamed
You give me a song In the midst of the night. For I trust You only In this hour of fright.
song, psalm, prayer
Songs of the American West
Richard E. Lingenfelter, Richard A. Dwyer and David Cohen
FC 11 L-10
78
Way Out in Idaho
Come, all you jolly railroaders, and listen if you can.
Oregon Short Line, Pocatello, American Falls, Kilpatrick's camp, tramp, O'Brien's camp
Cowboyology: The Science Of
FC 11 B-03
17
Dan Bradshaw
Santa in Pink
This cowboy weren't the sentimental kind; That's what his wife and kids would say.
The Cowboys' Star
FC 11 C-42
110
Gary Crum
Home
Down the eastern fork from the corral chain, beyond the back forty and Lehman Caves, Over the Rocky Mountains and the plain, Past the muddy Mississippi's smooth waves . . .
Hot Biscuits: Eighteen Stories by Women and Men of the Ranching West
Max Evans and Candy Moulton
FC 11 E-14
72
Slim Randles
Night Ride
Signature of the Sun: Southwest Verse, 1900-1950
Mabel Major and T.M. Pearce
FC 11 M-02
118
Kale Wilson Baker
Song of the Foreruners
The men who made Texas.
Verse for Aussie Children
Carmel Randle
FC 11 R-27
81
Milton Taylor
Triceratops
TRICERATOPS, TRICERATOPS, Lurching down the road he hops
Newest Poems: Western Poems
FC 11 R-25
25
Carl "Skinny" Rowland
No Doubt At All
Hey! hold it up there, dang you Jeb,
Sun and Saddle Leather
FC 11 C-12
114
Charles Badger Clark
The Piano at Red's
`Twas a hole called Red's Saloon.
piano, music, saloon, thoughts
Western Travels and Other Rhymes
FC 11 G-27
99
Lysius Gough
Wedding
Then soon our courtship ended.
love, united, hearts, bride, groom, wife, man, happy
Poems, Facts and Fiction
FC 11 O-03
85
Harold Otto
Pateros High School Class of 1982
Another year has come and gone.
Songs of the American West
Richard E. Lingenfelter, Richard A. Dwyer and David Cohen
FC 11 L-10
372
The Hills of Mexico
I found myself in Griffin in the spring of '83.
Sawdust & Shavin's
FC 11 S-11
47
Shep Smith
B.S. Bulletin No. 39 or Standard Procedure For Raises
Newly married and newly employed
Ranchland Poems
FC 11 S-08
7
Don Ian Smith
Stillborn Calf
Little heifer, with the stillborn calf,
Arizona Herstory: Tales from Her Storied Past
FC 11 J-13
200
Dee Strickland Johnson
Kingman
The leader said, "We'd best stop here."
wind, camp, married, children, died
Buckaroo: Visions and Voices of the American Cowboy
Hal Cannon and Thomas West
FC 11 C-38
29
Sunny Hancock
When They've Finished Shipping Cattle in the Fall
Though you're not exactly blue, Yet you don't feel like you do.