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
Poetic Works of Henry Lawson
David McKee Wright
FC 11 L-24
208
Henry Lawson
Days When We Went Swimming
The breezes waved the silver grass.
A Medley of Wilderness and Other Poems
FC 11 B-01
24
Elliott S. Barker
Horseback Riding
The exercise guaranteed best for one's health, Is riding a horse, if one's poor or has wealth.
Saddle Pals
FC 11 S-56
2
Range of the Buffalos
'Twas in the town of Jacksboro in the spring of seventy-three
New Tradition: Western Verse: A Collection of Poems
FC 11 G-20
80
Dennis Gaines
The Preacher and the Man Who Wouldn't Talk
Shadow peaks creep silent 'cross the unsuspecting plain.
Poems, Facts and Fiction
FC 11 O-03
51
Harold Otto
To Bill the Bull Cook
At the cook house near Pateros where the food is the best, there's a bull cook named Bill who gets darn little rest.
Open Range: Poetry of the Reimagined West
Laurie Wagner Buyer & WC Jameson
FC 11 W-30
92
Runaway
well I'd unhooked the trailer just like I'd done a hundred times I chocked the wheels I set the block and cranked it off the hitch.
Cowboy Poetry Matters: From Abilene to the Mainstream: Contemporary Cowboy Writ.
Robert McDowell
FC 11 M-54
43
Robert R. Brown
Old Never
Bill Hogan jammed his hat down, then nodded at the gate.
Passing Through
FC 11 N-03
64
Howard L. Norskog
Sammy
So you want me to tell you of Sammy, And the bullets that cut him down
death
Poetic Works of Henry Lawson
David McKee Wright
FC 11 L-24
92
Henry Lawson
To an Old Mate
Old Mate! In the gusty old weather.
Steering With My Knees
Paul Zarzyski
FOLK COLL 11 Z-5
132
Paul Zarzyski
Dear Mom
The night that devil danced on me I know how you barely peeked between fingers and beads. You heard the hard blow-by-blow announcer cawing from the crow's nest, above the cowboy holler and dust,
piano, rodeo, drunk
Brushstrokes & Balladeers: Painters and Poets of the American West
C.J. Hadley
FC 11 H-60
82
John Dofflemyer
Old Men
So much needs not to be said. Old men grin with their eyes, save breath with a look of understanding, yet the preachers, teachers and poets go on and on,
search, resonance, magic
Cowboy Poetry: Classic Rhymes by Bruce Kiskaddon (1878-1950)
Mason and Janice Coggin
FC 11 K-21
16
Bruce Kiskaddon
Ants in His Pants
From the way this here old cow boy is takin' off his pants.
New Cowboy Poetry: A Contemporary Gathering
Hal Cannon
FC 11 C-30
146
Eric Sprado
Wait 'Til You Become a Man
I remember seeing men; Who lost their farms in the thirties.
Land Circle: Writings Collected from the Land
FC 11 H-43
168
Linda M. Hasselstrom
Pennies for luck
A heron flaps upstream, the color of fog over the river, the bridge throbs under my tires
Give My Love to Children - Horses - A Collection of Stories and Poems
FC 11 J-07
38
Hans Jacob Jeppson
Plaudit II: In Search of Pedigree
April 28, 1978 in northern Utah the over-cast sky nearly touched the ground as rain slashed at a large powerful mare laboring in the tall grass of her pasture.
Signature of the Sun: Southwest Verse, 1900-1950
Mabel Major and T.M. Pearce
FC 11 M-02
120
Margie B. Boswell
The Texas Ranger
In the old, old days when the West was young.
Buck Ramsey's Poetry Inventory
Buck Ramsey
FOLK COLL 11 R-48
210
Buck Ramsey
Poem in Arabic
unknown
unknown
Cowboy Songs, Jokes, Lingo 'n Lore
FC 11 E-22
7
Wayne Erbsen
Bravest Cowboy
I am the braveseet cowboy, Tat ever rode the West. I've been all over the Rockies, Got bullets in my chest. in eighteen hundred and sixty-three, I joined the immigrant band.
West of East
FC 11 H-17
47
Harry Elmore Hurd
Winnemucca Mountain
Sometimes, Old Winnemucca, you wear your clouds.
Nevada, mountains, pioneers, prospector, mining, past
Ranch Verses
FC 11 C-09
107
William Lawrence Chittenden
The Waltz
The wooing waltz, the wooing waltz.
dance, music, kisses, romance
Passing Through
FC 11 N-03
2
Howard L. Norskog
Little Girls
Freckles on their little noses, Cheeks a blooming like a roses
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
100
Sean Sexton
The Ugly Bull
We had to castrate a large black Brahman-cross bull calf born out of season - he was the epitome of ugliness, too much ear, overgrown, wild, wrong in time and place, the result of an unplanned liaison between his Brahman mother and a cull bull that broke through the fence.
castration, shock, mercy
JB The Circle
Duward Campbell and Chuck Milner
FC 11 A-17
29
J.B. Allen
Slipknots
A quiet knot of hardened men stood somber as a judge 'round the shrouded figure lain in deaths repose
I Was Born in the Night, But Not Last Night
FC 11 C-23
22
Ellie Corrigan
Ben
Ben rides through my memories since I was just a child.
admiration, work
Fifty Miles from Home: Riding the Long Circle on a Nevada Family Ranch
FC 11 D-12
Carolyn Dufurrena & Linda Dufurrena