COWBOY POETS TIP THEIR HATS TO LIFE IN '90S
Tom Knudson 02/01/99
The Sacramento Bee
(Copyright 1999)
Outside, the temperature hovered around 5 degrees. Ice clung like
iron to sidewalks. Clouds of automobile exhaust drifted across
frozen streets and parking lots.
But inside the Elko Convention Center, there was the sweet smell
of sage after a summer rain. The atmosphere was warm with words,
lightened by laughter and touched, now and then, by tears.
The occasion was the Western Folklife Center's 15th annual Cowboy
Poetry Gathering, an event more worldly and important than it sounds.
Not only has the festival -- which ended Sunday -- drawn national and
international attention (Yevgeny Yevtushenko, a famous Russian poet
attended two years ago; Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Annie Proulx
showed up last year), it has moved beyond its cowboy roots to
celebrate the spirit and diversity of the West and its wide-open
space -- and chart some of its future, too.
This past week, some of the most widely known names in Western
folk and ranch life passed through Elko.
Monty Roberts, author of the best-selling book "The Man Who
* Listens to Horses," was here. So, too, was Ian Tyson, the Canadian
folk singer; William McDonald, a fifth-generation Arizona rancher
known for his pioneering efforts to make ranching and conservation
work together; Henry Real Bird from the Crow Indian Reservation in
Montana; Sourdough Slim, the yodeling cowboy from Paradise; and many
others.
Equally impressive was the crowd that came to see them. Roughly
9,000 people from 40 states and five foreign countries crammed into
Elko, filling casinos and motels, increasing Elko's population by
more than 30 percent and spending $1 million a day.
What they found was a rendezvous more about the reality of Western
ranch life than the romance, part free verse and part ballad and
rhyme. They heard from ranchers who work with conservationists and
the government to protect open space. They listened to speakers who
mourned the recent killing of 34 wild horses outside Reno, to
ranchers who are learning to live with predators, and to cowboy poets
who are moving beyond ridin' and ropin' to write about such things as
apartheid, the Holocaust and American Indian injustice.
The morning after
hearing (Czeslaw) Milosz, I wept
tears in the Holocaust Museum,
one for each mildewed shoe
heaped in a musky dark
exhibit . . .
Now, I must sing to you of the
bugle-beaded, horse-tracks-
on-buckskin
Sioux moccasin, so tiny against
the black
mountains of shoes -- one baby's
bootee found
frozen in the snow at Wounded
Knee.
-- Paul Zarzyski,
former rodeo rider,
Great Falls, Mont.
Hal Cannon, founding director of the gathering, said he is not
surprised that cowboy poetry is becoming more cosmopolitan. Ranch
life is changing, he said, and poetry is a mirror for that.
"One of my cowboy friends from Recluse, Wyoming, feeds cows in the
morning and designs Web sites on the Internet in the afternoon," he
said. "Another is a contractor from Utah. He rode 300 miles on
horseback to be here.
"A lot of people don't want to be categorized just as cowboys and
ranchers anymore," Cannon continued. "They live in the modern world,
too. And they write what's in their experience, from something they
might see on TV to the politics of the day. It's impossible in the
1990s to be isolated."
One thing has remained constant -- the need for camaraderie, a
strand that -- in the Western states -- reaches to the fur-trading
rendezvous of the 19th century.
"My first year in Elko I expected to find a cowboy Disneyland,"
said California rancher and poet John Dofflemyer. "Instead, I found
real, feeling, sensitive people with hands-on experience who came
from the same culture I did."
"People are drawn here for one reason," said Rick Crowder, who
goes by the stage name Sourdough Slim. "It's because they have a
deep love of the West. They have a bond with the land. It's an
emotional experience."
So we consume the foothills --
dig and blast
speed our erosion up to pay the
bills and truck
the last harvest to towns hungry
for another
new place to park.
John Dofflemyer,
Settling The San Joaquin
All is not well on the land these days. Low beef prices,
development pressure, endangered species conflicts and declining
productivity of grasslands are among the problems that have led some
to say that Western ranching is doomed. But William McDonald
disagrees.
"Ranching is going to survive," said McDonald, who last year was
awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award for his
efforts to protect ranching, open space and endangered species. "It
is going to be the people who are not afraid to change who make it,
versus the people who say 'I'm going to go down fighting.' Because
they will go down."
The core of his success is working with The Nature Conservancy,
government agencies, scientific organizations and other ranchers to
improve range conditions and protect open space across a large corner
of southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico. The collaborative
effort is called The Malpai Borderlands Group.
"Some folks question whether cattle should be run on public
lands," said McDonald, who grazes 300 head of livestock across a mix
of public and private land. "What they don't realize is the future
of public lands is tied to what happens to the intermingled and
adjacent private ranch lands.
"Removing livestock from public lands means ranchers must salvage
what they can from their remaining private land," he said. "And that
almost inevitably leads to development -- and to urban-type impacts
on the public lands."
"It's real simple," said Dofflemyer, a fifth-generation cattle
rancher from the Sierra Nevada foothills southeast of Fresno. "We
want to sustain ranch land for future generations."
Increasingly, that means learning to live with a wide range of
wildlife. Joel Nelson, a Vietnam vet and cowboy from west Texas,
read a poem about making peace with a traditional ranching
troublemaker: the coyote.
You are no longer my enemy
Nor I yours
Our world is too small
For those feelings
If times should become tough
for you and yours
Take a calf from my herd
but use discretion -- and don't
spread the word
Feel free to trot past my camp--
and tease my dog on cold
mornings
For as long as we can hear your
songs
We will know the world is still
large enough,
Yours and mine
A similar sentiment was expressed toward wild horses. World-
renowned horse trainer Monty Roberts said he was shocked by the
recent slaughter of 34 wild horses in the Nevada desert. (Three
individuals, including two Marines, have been charged.)
"How can you react to a massacre?" he said.
"Those are sick individuals," Roberts said. "They need help."
Cannon, founding director of the gathering, said he's pleased to
see cowboy poetry reach beyond the bunkhouse.
"Some of my environmental friends are upset that cowboys have been
made articulate through this process. They want the laconic, aw-
shucks cowboy stereotype to last, because it benefits their
movement," he said.
"I don't agree. I think we have improved the dialogue among those
who have a stake in the future of the West."
Fall in love with all that is
new born --
universe, seedling, dawn,
human, foal, calf.
Love equally the seasons, know
each sky has meaning,
winter, the big lonesomes,
the endless horizons
- Paul Zarzyski
