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
Coming Out Of The Cowboy Closet (Cowboy Poetry, Pictures, and Other Stuff)
FC 11 C-56
49
D.L. Chance
Hollywood Bound
A few of the boys were sittin' round' talking one year at the end of the season "What you gonna do now" was the man topic of discussion
Famous Cowboy and Mountain Ballads
FC 11 F-23
93, 95
Eva Rose York
I shall not pass this way again
I shall not pass this way again, although it bordered be with flowers
The Columbine Remembers
Anna Bowie May
FC 11 M-26
21
Dorothy May
Get a Transfer
If you're on a Gloomy Line, get a transfer
From the Pages of Her Heart
FC 11 M-28
26
Frances May Dorr Wheeler
After Christmas
As I fold the tinsel and wrapped the cr?che, I heard baby Shannon say,
The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses
FC 11 P-16
234
Banjo Paterson
The Protest
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.
Rambler's Notebook: 50 Years of Scribblin': Songs & Poems from the Road
FC 11 A-16
60
Singin' Sam Agins
The Old Home Twenty
Big Old Tom had the hammer down. A dead-headin into that shaky city town.
Tracks in the sand: original cowboy poetry
FC 11 W-36
8
Perry L. Williams
What's life
Life is a song and a short one at that. Don't last much longer than the tip of your hat.
Rawhide Rhymes
FC 11 B-05
76
S. Omar Barker
Git Along!
The dogie's a calf without parents or friends.
motherless calf, stray calf, poor health
Cowboy and Other Poetry: Thoughts by Men Who Have Mashed Their Fingers
FC 11 T-16
25
Jim Tanner
The Texan
A Texan came through the door.
Rawhide Rhymes
FC 11 B-05
26
S. Omar Barker
Bedtime Story
She married a cowboy.
sleep, marriage, husband, wife, snoring, moo, moos, sleeplessness, awake
The Cowboy Sings: Traditional Songs of the Western Frontier
Kenneth S. Clark
FC 11 C-33
12
By the Silvery Rio Grande
In the Lone Star State of Texas, By the silver Rio Grande.
Back at the Ranch
FC 11 S-29
68
Colen H. Sweeten Jr.
Ruby Valley Ranch
I stood with the mountain behind me
Best Loved Poems of the American West
John J. and Barbara T. Gregg
FC 11 G-09
18
Frank French
The Pioneer
Fill up your glass, O comrade true.
toast, experience, stories, remembrances, Platte, rheumatism, martyr lives
I've Been There Too: Real Cowboy Poetry Describing Real Wyoming Ranch Life
FC 11 H-22
13
Terry Henderson
There is Home
Where the mighty pine tree grows tall.
home, Douglas, Wyoming
Ever and Always I Shall Love the Land
FC 11 G-01
65
Clell Goebel Gannon
Song Of The Buttes
I am a song for the ages.
stars, sunset, Oligocene river, Nile, age, timelessness
Ranch Verses
FC 11 C-09
146
William Lawrence Chittenden
Lines to an Artist in New York
There's a snug little nook in the city's great heart.
painter, studio, curiosities, plunder, paint
Cowboy Songs and Other Frontier Ballads
John A. Lomax
FC 11 L-12
271
Her White Bosom Bare
The sun had gone down.
Signature of the Sun: Southwest Verse, 1900-1950
Mabel Major and T.M. Pearce
FC 11 M-02
191
Sam Giesey
R.I.P. Indian Territory
Strange, mourning genii ranked across the sky.
Powder River Jack & Kitty Lee?s Songs of the Range
FC 11 P-17
36
Powder River Jack and Kitty Lee
I Am A Texas Cowboy
Oh, I am a Texas cowboy, right off the Texas plains
songs only
May Darkness Restore
Sean Sexton
FOLK COLL 11 S-74
20
Sean Sexton
Planting Aeschynomene Seed
It pours from a muslin sack like sunlight through a cracked window shade, fifty pounds to a metal washtub, old as your footsteps.
milk, flour, tractor
Ruby Mountain Rhymes
FC 11 W-09
16
Jack Walther
The Gate Post
It is more than a gatepost, my son, you will see.
Saddle Pals
FC 11 S-56
23
There's an Empty Cot in the Bunk House
There's a cot unused in the bunkhouse to-night, there's a pinto's head hanging low,
Saddle Up And R-i-i-i-d-e More Cowboy Poetry
FC 11 R-40
18
Jim Ross
A Relic Of The Past
Behind the corral in sort of a heap Is a home like I used when I once herded sheep; The roof is all gone, the sides in decay, The floor and the wheels are just rotting away.
The Humbler Poets: A Collection of Newspaper and Periodical Verse, 1870-1885
Slason Thompson
FC 11 T-04
292
James Roann Reed
Eliab Eliezer
The Reverend Eliab Eliezer