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.
Here is a sampling of 25 records from the database of 29769. (View All)
Book Title
Composer
Call #
Pages
Author
Poem Title
First Lines
Keywords
Holaday and Hampton Poetry
Hampton Livestock Commission Co.
FC 11 H-39
64
The Holaday & Hampton Poet (Bruce Kiskaddon)
Getting' It Settled
Well, it's got to the place where they started to fight, and it looks like they'll soon git it settled all right.
Lyrics of the Lariat
FC 11 G-10
70
Nathan Kirk Griggs
The Blizzard
So Sam, old boy, you were East the day.
storm, school marm, teacher, wife, mother, child, snow, prayer, father, bell
A-Movin' West
FC 11 B-70
21
D.J Badger
Lonesome Cowboy
I saw in the paper just recent, 'Bout the death of a man here well known. He was ninety-three at his passing. HIs relatives, he had outgrown. One line caught my eye 'bout his story.
Sagebrush, Saddles and Spurs
FC 11 T-19
33
Hamilton Teichert
The Handle Bar
On a little feller like that, it'd take 20 years or so Before the first fuzz would start to grow.
Musings from Cowboy Country
FOLK COLL 11 R-46
71
George Rhoades
Little Red Wagon
In back of the barn, under old boxes, a tattered tarp, rusty, paint peeling, dented, one wheel missing, handle broken, the little red wagon, the Radio Flyer, from my childhood days.
wagon, imagination
Verse for Aussie Children
Carmel Randle
FC 11 R-27
43
Sharon Anderson
Mates
A mate will understand you
Cowboy Poetry from Utah
Carol A. Edison
FC 11 E-06
34
Melvin L. "Meb" Whipple
How They Lived
The people that used to live out in the West.
Utah, lifestyle, dance, life, west
Ruby Mountain Rhymes
FC 11 W-09
22
Jack Walther
The Telephone Bell
The stack was near the house.
Western Verse or Worse
FC 11 F-10
12
Rolf M. Flake
Mean Mama
We's a brandin' th' calves.
branding, calf, castrate
West Word Ho! The western poetry of Doris Daley
FC 11 D-23
58
Doris Daley
What is a Westerner?
A westerner knows... That Goodnight Loving is a trail, and not a one-night stand. A cowboy's worth his salt if he's made of grit and sand.
Muddled Meanderings in an Outhouse Number 2
FC 11 R-12
10
Bob Ross
The Ultimate
An inside outhouse, so it seems,
Bitterbrush Country: Living on the Edge of the Land
FC 11 P-31
86
Diane Josephy Peavy
Grand Champion
Where Old Trails Meet the New on Oregon High Desert
Ramona Turmon and Lona Tankersley Burkhart
FC 11 T-12
9
Ramona Turmon
Cowgirls
Who are these people called cowgirls
Cowboy Poetry: Contemporary Verse
FC 11 M-43
27
Larry McWhorter
A Bad Start
The clock don't ring as early
Confessions of a cowboy poet: The complete works of Bob Christensen, to date (in
FC 11 C-52
12
Bob Christensen
Tree of Utah
I hope that I shall never see another giant cemet tree with giant balls of red and green a fouling up some desert scene
West River Waltz: Western Poetry
FC 11 G-31
130
D. W. Groethe
In Without Knockin'
A man can only take so much cow crap and dust.
Give My Love to Children - Horses - A Collection of Stories and Poems
FC 11 J-07
70
Hans Jacob Jeppson
Flower of the Desert
Across icy Utah and Colorado -- Down the road I've come to know.
The Trouble with Dreams
FC 11 Q-01
Vess Quinlan
After the gather
The best of it comes after the gather when finally alone, withrested horses, you saddle up to look for the wise old girls
A Cowful of Cowboy Poetry
FC 11 B-43
94
Baxter Black
Dog Days in the Feedlot
Well, it's dog days in the feedlot now that summer's nearly done.
A Rhyme for No Reason
FC 11 U-02
47
Bob Urry
Old Friends and Memories
He's more crippled up than old
Cheyenne Line and other poems
FC 11 B-57
54
J. V. Brummels
Dead men's fences
For all my children's lives I've built a herd, and no one builds without taking, from an Indian
Rhymes of the Range Land
FC 11 J-04
43
Bob Johnston
The 30th of May 1985
The wind came up strong.
storm, wind, environment, hardship,
Prairie Wife
FC 11 E-20
105
Elizabeth Ebert
Fall
King Midas would have loved the fall With all it's golden hue, The wheat fields ripened by the sun, The combines that will spew Their wealth into the waiting trucks, The yellow ears of corn, The pumpkins bright amid the vines.
Pat Richardson, Unhobbled
FOLK COLL 11 R-50
26
Pat Richardson
Missing Person
Ned went to check some heifers ...took along three bales of hay, and what shoulda took two hours drug out for several days.
missing person, husband, description
Rhymes & damn lies
FC 11 P-34
57
Mike Puhallo
Courage
The west is creation's best, sculpted by ice, wind, fire.