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 |  I've maxed out. Closed this blog. |
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This is a way of making myself write something coherent and grammatically correct almost every day. I'm opinionated and need an outlet. I'm also prone to flights of fancy. Thanks for stopping by. |
| I just discovered a very real thing called cowboy poetry. There are conventions for the very thing all over the country. They're not all old poems, like from the late 1800's, but are still being written. They have a lot in common with each other and meet certain standards. First, they don't have to be written by a cowboy or someone who has lived part of the cowboy lifestyle, though generally, it happens that way. Cowboy poems have certain topics, like horses, cattle, homesickness, old times and old ways that are now gone, the girl at home, the trials and tribulations of the trail, tributes to famous or infamous cowboys, or humorous tales. They can be contemporary because cowboys still exist in western Canada. the western U.S., Australia, Mexico, and Peru, even though the cattle drives have been replaced with the railroad. They could be free verse or modern poetry, but that's uncommon. They usually stick to familiar rhyme and rhythm. That makes them easy to remember and to tell in every saloon or on any ranch or camp site. Especially in the early days, since illiteracy was common in the profession, poetry was a way of memorizing a tale. Frequently, these poems can be set to music. At contemporary poetry gatherings, popular on certain ranches, people like to try their hand at poems, story tellers give verbal presentations, and singers give their mini-concerts. Books are sold, and new artists are encouraged. Old legends are revived and history is taught. New entertainment is presented. I particularly liked one about an "educated man", who at first impressed the cowboys, but then got on their nerves. They agreed to play practical jokes on him, and gave him a wild horse, but he proved to be adept at horse handling. Then they tested him with a gun; once again, he proved he was worthy. They agreed if he could handle a rope that they would respect him. He could rope cattle faster than all the others. The moral of the story was that "every educated man is not necessarily a greenhorn". |
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