FOLK COLLECTION 11: The Skaggs Foundation Cowboy Poetry Collection
| Date of Items: | 1890-present | Register Prepared by: | Randy Williams and Susan Gross, April 2004 |
| Register Updated by: | Randy Williams, 23 December 2009 |
| Excel database transfered to MYSQL and uploaded (replacing PHP data): | Colin Jackson, Fall 2010 |
| MYSQL database updated: | Randy Williams, January 2012 |
| Linear Feet: | 20 |
Historical Note & Provenance
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.
Scope and Content
The collection consists of 20 linear feet of books on cowboy poetry, including press and self published works. The collection can be accessed through USU Libraries online catalog.
As well, poem titles and keywords found in each book in the collection are included in the database below. To use, type in the search term. Tip: Try and use an uncommon
word from the poem to ensure less "hits." For instance, if you enter "boots" you will get many hits; but if you enter "bones" you will most liley get fewer "hits" or poems and find the item you seek faster.
To return to the search page, click "home" at the bottom of the page.
Search:
Poetry table.
First Previous Next Last| ID | Book Title | Composer | Index | Pages | Author | Poem Title | First Lines | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22793 | Cow Tracks on the Land | FC 11 B-66 | 12 | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | My Favorite Song | When I was a tiny child, upon my fathers knee, the thundering storm, was a frightening sound to me. But he taught me storms were, but a promise kept, | ||
| 22794 | Cow Tracks on the Land | FC 11 B-66 | 13 | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | The Song of the Land | The song of the land, is a really beautiful thing. With the many melodies, the changing seasons bring. It has filled my life, with pleasures untold. Just as it did my fathers, in days of old. | ||
| 22795 | Cow Tracks on the Land | FC 11 B-66 | 14 | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | Eric Spardo | The beauty, the beauty, my pen can't quite share Tho' I'll do my best to put you there. One of those magic evenings in Butte Valley | ||
| 22796 | Cow Tracks on the Land | FC 11 B-66 | 16 | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | Desert Death | The newcomers come, and talk of this desert land. They say it is a boy, that is soon to become a man. they say it is young, changing, improving and growing. | ||
| 22797 | Cow Tracks on the Land | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | FC 11 B-66 | 17 | Bob Schild | The River's Story | Whispering Waters so cold and so free, Oh what a story they'er telling to me. Winding old river, as wild as can be, Gurgling Tales on its way to the sea | |
| 22798 | Cow Tracks on the Land | FC 11 B-66 | 18 | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | Alone | Some crave company, of others of their kind. The need to be alone never enters their mind. Me, I need solitude, of God and | ||
| 22799 | Cow Tracks on the Land | FC 11 B-66 | 19 | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | The Colors of a Winter Night | The bright yellow moon hung like frozen fire in the midnight sky. Luminous threads of fog drifted thru trees like the echo of a sigh. | ||
| 22800 | Cow Tracks on the Land | FC 11 B-66 | 20 | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | The Song of the Wild Geese | Have you sat your horse on a rocky ridge, with winter in the air? And watched the cloud streaked skies, until you could see them there? | ||
| 22801 | Cow Tracks on the Land | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | FC 11 B-66 | 21 | Rob Blair | The Land of Magic | See the big, dizzy moutains with its snow clouds a misty thin. And the ghostly winds that whisper in this land of quiet and | |
| 22802 | Cow Tracks on the Land | FC 11 B-66 | 22 | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | Fire!! | Fire on the ridge! The wind is high. Smoke blackens, the evening sky. Wind a fickle seductress, like none other. Leading the dancing flames, first one way, then another. | ||
| 22803 | Cow Tracks on the Land | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | FC 11 B-66 | 24 | Leon Flick | Listen to the Sun Go Down | Upon a warm September's eve, the sun was dipping low. I sat myself upon a rim from there to watch the show. the shadows were their longest now as darkness soon would be. | |
| 22804 | Cow Tracks on the Land | FC 11 B-66 | 25 | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | Cowman's Love of the Land | I watched that John Wayne re-run on TV, the other night. My, how the horses did run, and how the cowboys did fight. The greedy ol' cowman, ridin' rough-shod, hard and tall | ||
| 22805 | Cow Tracks on the Land | FC 11 B-66 | 29 | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | The Deepest Valley | It's storming in the High Sierra's, clouds hang angry and low. THe lofty peaks are hidden, from those of us below. I have looked at the sky above, and wondered. | ||
| 22806 | Cow Tracks on the Land | FC 11 B-66 | 30 | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | Packin' in the Eastern High Sierra's | I've heard quite a few cowboys, that followed a wagon or two. Make fun of the packers, and say, it's something that they wouldn't do. . . | ||
| 22807 | Cow Tracks on the Land | FC 11 B-66 | 32 | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | High Sierras | Down thru California run the high Sierra peaks. I've been there to see the morning sun's golden streaks. It's high beautiful, clear, and clean. Finest of mother nature's work that I've ever seen. | ||
| 22808 | Cow Tracks on the Land | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | FC 11 B-66 | 39 | R. Turmon | Ballot Measures and Other Falisities | Not everybody was fortunate enough to grow up on a ranch in the West. So not everyone learned of hills, grasses, and water, life blood of the country. They don't even know the soul of the land, | |
| 22809 | Cow Tracks on the Land | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | FC 11 B-66 | 41 | Ramona Turmon | BLM Horses and Other Dumb Stuff | I'm sure you know about the horses belonging to the BLM But if you don't let me tell you the situation is plenty grim The BLM | |
| 22810 | Cow Tracks on the Land | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | FC 11 B-66 | 42 | Ramona Turmon | Environmentalists and Cow Manure | The American West is the place of my birth And I really love it But others know better how to manage the Earth Or so they think | |
| 22811 | Cow Tracks on the Land | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | FC 11 B-66 | 43 | John Dofflemyer | Representation | I think futures a tolerable topic for those that figger they understand But for cowboys, it's a cryptic, and beyond the average cowman. | |
| 22812 | Cow Tracks on the Land | FC 11 B-66 | 44 | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | Those Government Men | When I was young, in the land of sun, I loved the open stretches, and the brush. But I dreamed of a land, where the cool water ran, and the grass was high and green and lush. | ||
| 22813 | Cow Tracks on the Land | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | FC 11 B-66 | 49 | Eric Spardo | B.L.M. | I've been told them B.L.M.'ers Is just like me and you. But I've wondered for years Why they couldn't just leave And find something better to do. | |
| 22814 | Cow Tracks on the Land | FC 11 B-66 | 58 | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | The Difference | There's something that I've noticed, down thru the years. There comes a short time, when a friendship disappears. It points out the difference, thats between you and me. And it happened again, just the other day, you see. . . . | ||
| 22815 | Cow Tracks on the Land | FC 11 B-66 | 59 | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | Fencing | I've been fixing fence, upon my East property line. All thru hunting season, I sure been having quite a time. Four young fillies, to my stud horse had came'a'lopin. When hunters cut the wire, and left the gate wide open. | ||
| 22816 | Cow Tracks on the Land | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | FC 11 B-66 | 63 | Jon Bowerman | The Hunter | I've come here to the county court To ask you Judge for your support I was going hunting yesterday And found a gate, locked, in my way! | |
| 22817 | Along the Chisholm Trail and Other Poems | FC 11 R-44 | 111 | George Rhoades | Section 23 | The pioneer received the land In the lottery of August 1901, Brought his young wife down In a wagon under the summer sun. |