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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22944 | Old Stories | FC 11 K-26 | 86 | Jo Lynne Kirkwood | Another Old Woman | After so many years of habit she could not imagine wiping another man's rust from her bathtub. | ||
| 22945 | Old Stories | FC 11 K-26 | 87 | Jo Lynne Kirkwood | Ilene | The old woman sits, doing peaches, Thin skins slipping like gloves From the firm, yellow flesh of the peaches. Each movement a lesson in love. | ||
| 22946 | Old Stories | FC 11 K-26 | 89 | Jo Lynne Kirkwood | The Pheasant Dream | In the September night walls become heavy and push inward. Stars begin to call my name. They pull me. | ||
| 22947 | Old Stories | FC 11 K-26 | 90 | Jo Lynne Kirkwood | Irrigating the Cornfield by Moonlight | Huddled one against another My children sleep. They do not sense the moving waters. In the cornfield, the streams wet the soil, nurture the stems. | ||
| 22948 | Old Stories | FC 11 K-26 | 91 | Jo Lynne Kirkwood | A Thing Accomplished | I sense you once knew what shadows could be cast from a stained glass window And the colors transparent in an eggshell. | ||
| 22949 | Old Stories | FC 11 K-26 | 92 | Jo Lynne Kirkwood | Water like Voices | In the night waters will stretch with quicksilver hands to tunnel beneath the roadbed. | ||
| 22950 | Old Stories | FC 11 K-26 | 93 | Jo Lynne Kirkwood | Death, Disguised as a Flower | In the bent afternoon light of late October a thin petal, marking slow, distant time free-falls. | ||
| 22951 | Old Stories | FC 11 K-26 | 94 | Jo Lynne Kirkwood | Rio Madre | Colorado River, rio madre, running like time running like life from the Rockies. | ||
| 22952 | Old Stories | FC 11 K-26 | 96 | Jo Lynne Kirkwood | Colorado | On the walls of Toroweap, above white waters of Lava Falls I watched you seek the Colorado, try to escape to the sea. | ||
| 22953 | Old Stories | FC 11 K-26 | 98 | Jo Lynne Kirkwood | Kanab Creek | Red clay like cracked mosaic Shards with missing grout a slash across this sandstone desert. | ||
| 22954 | The Ballad of Gutless Ditch | FC 11 L-36 | 1 | Katie Lee | Matalot (Summer 1888) | The town is splattered on the hills as if birds had dumped their load Among the rocks and cactus quills since time began. | ||
| 22955 | The Ballad of Gutless Ditch | FC 11 L-36 | 23 | Katie Lee | Danielle (Fall 1879) | Matt had total recall about his meeting with Danielle. She came to Gutless in the fall of '79, at the age of twenty-three. | ||
| 22956 | The Ballad of Gutless Ditch | FC 11 L-36 | 37 | Katie Lee | Sangre Glade (Winter 1879-Spring 1880) | That Christmas in the desert night, Matthew and the French schoolmarm rode out on the hills of darkness 'neath the crescent light of a waning moon. | ||
| 22957 | The Ballad of Gutless Ditch | FC 11 L-36 | 53 | Katie Lee | Satan's Gut (Summer 1888) | As Matalot and new-found father, Matt Kinkade emerged astride Portero from the Glade, Matt told his son to point the horse Toward the gape of Satan's Gut. | ||
| 22958 | The Ballad of Gutless Ditch | FC 11 L-36 | 65 | Katie Lee | Kinkade & Sons (Summer 1908) | Twenty years have slipped way, yet none in Gutless, to this day nor in the miles of country 'round, can say Why Satan's gut caved in its walls. | ||
| 22959 | Cow Tracks on the Land | FC 11 B-66 | 139 | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | Christmas Prayer From the Mountian Country | Dear God, who made these mountians, to which, in reverence we thrill. You, who filled the midnite sky with stars, please, make us to understand Your Will. | ||
| 22960 | Cow Tracks on the Land | FC 11 B-66 | 140 | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | Cow Country Christmas Thoughts | The price of hay sure gone sky high. The water trough has sprung a leak. The price of cows makes you sigh. Now that mud holes belly deep. | ||
| 22961 | Cow Tracks on the Land | FC 11 B-66 | 142 | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | We are not Alone | Love thy God, thy Father, and for thy sins atone. Love thy neighbor, you shall not be alone. As He suffered upon the cross, from our sins, us to save. | ||
| 22962 | Cow Tracks on the Land | FC 11 B-66 | 145 | Lona Tankersley Burkhart | No Regrets | I've loved my life, as I've loved the land, when it was open, free and grand. No matter what others might say, I would not trade for yesterday, | ||
| 22964 | Frank's Sampler | FC 11 T-15 | 1 | Frank Thornburgh | A Frog's View | Prose: Patricia and I were sitting at a window table in our favorite resteraunt located on a busy downtown intersection. We were both studying the people-zoo passing by outside. | ||
| 22965 | Frank's Sampler | FC 11 T-15 | 2 | Frank Thornburgh | Gatherin Strays | Ambers said, "We've got two strays to catch. In the morning we'll start before light. I'll meet you at dad's with my horse | ||
| 22966 | Frank's Sampler | FC 11 T-15 | 4 | Frank Thornburgh | Cow Pies | Prose: A few years back I went to Elko, Nevada cowboy poetry gathering. It is traditionally held late January or February when ranch life slows down a bit. | ||
| 22967 | Frank's Sampler | FC 11 T-15 | 6 | Frank Thornburgh | Howling at the Moon | It was a full moon night all was snowy white. Sitting in the outhouse with open door for light. Breath floating on air as stars I did stare. | ||
| 22968 | Frank's Sampler | FC 11 T-15 | 7 | Frank Thornburgh | Shooting House Flies | Prose: Our old farmhouse sat way back off the road down a long driveway. There was clear visibility a quarter mile both directions down the road. | ||
| 22969 | Frank's Sampler | FC 11 T-15 | 8 | Frank Thornburgh | Hemorrhoids | Prose: While I was a police officer in 1961 working for the city of Garden Grove, my hemorrhoids became so bad I had to visit the doctor assigned by our department. |