These recent works are from America's best cowboy and cowgirl poets, most of whom are regular participants in local cowboy poetry gatherings and in the Granddaddy Gathering held each January in Elko, Nevada. Included here are some of the best-known poets, such as Waddie Mitchell, Wally McRae, and more who breathe reality into the myth of the ranching life. Cowboy Poetry is a cultural phenomenon that continues to spread like wildfire across the country.

A Tucson author presents 64 poems about cowboy and ranch life.

This book offers the first in-depth examination of a distinctive and community-based tradition rich with larger-than-life heroes, vivid occupational language, humor, and unblinking encounters with birth, death, nature, and animals in the poetry.

This collection of poems was chosen from among 10, 000 gathered from cowboy reciters, ranch poets and from a library of over 200 published works of cowboy verse. One third of the poems are classics that have proven their vitality by having lived in the hearts and minds of cowboys and ranchers for decades. The remaining two-thirds are new, created within the last few years. "Most cowboy poems speak of real events and people, from bucking horses and cagey cows to old Stetson hats and long winter travels. Although they focus on the ordinary stuff of life, their truths . . . seem no less eternal than those penned by William Shakespeare. Some cowboy poems are bust-a-gut funny; a few are downright dirty . . . most carry an honest, primitive power." --Michael Riley, TIME Magazine

"In this text, author and editor David Fillingim turns his attention to the West - West Georgia that is. This book examines how the contemporary cowboy poetry revival that sprung up in 1985 in Elko, Nevada, has borne fruit in the Peach State. First, Fillingim traces the history of cowboy poetry and its emergence as a cultural phenomenon. Then he recounts the story of how Georgia became home to a vibrant cowboy poetry scene. But the largest part of the book is an anthology of poems by some of the finest cowboy poets anywhere, and they all happen to be in Georgia." "As celebrated cowboy-poet Doris Daley says in the preface, "everywhere is west of somewhere". So settle in, and travel with Fillingim to someplace west of wherever you are, and enjoy this unique combination of shrewd scholarly analysis and heartwarming cowboy poetry." --Book Jacket.

These "New Westers", Johnson reveals, line-dance and two-step, listen to Garth Brooks and George Strait, drink beer from long-neck bottles, wear clothes ordered from Sheplers, watch rodeo on ESPN, play Wild West arcade games, eat fajitas and tacos in stuccoed Mexican cafes, collect Western art and Native American crafts, and vacation in and move to the West. "New Westers" rewrite the history and biography of the West. They reimagine the West in Cowboy sagas and poetry, Native American novels, Mexican-American drama, nature writing, revisionist films, eclectic visual artwork, and neo-traditional music. They flock to movies like Thelma and Louise, Unforgiven, and Dances with Wolves, watch mini-series like Lonesome Dove, and read bestsellers like The Crossing and All The Pretty Horses. "New Westers" are men and women who may or may not have ever hitched up a horse but who crave connection with the West. At the end of a century of urbanization, technological change, and cultural confusion, they seek a more natural home, a fuller and wider sense of place, and a deeper and more colorful personal identity. They also want to revive the dream of the mythic West - but on different terms. They overrun the Old West and yet strive to preserve it, raising troubling new concerns about the differences between the mythic and the real, between traditional and contemporary cultural influences.

In Making Circles, Barney Nelson unveils working-class cowboy culture through the eyes of one who has lived the life she chronicles. From living on ranch camps to surviving both cowboy school and graduate school, Nelson’s story is a journey through time and place, pointing out that cowboys inhabit every continent and century, from Lakota Indians and Hawaiian paniolos to Argentine gauchos and Australian ringers, from Pegasus to Cervantes and Tolstoy. Even Thoreau called himself a cowboy. Nelson's story is both personal and expansive, guiding the reader in circles around the modern West, from Montana to Mexico. Along the way, she celebrates the many characters she has encountered and considers role models. Unafraid to challenge the status quo, Nelson fearlessly defends embattled ranchers as well as the humanities, while speaking truth to the powerful forces of environmentalism, tourism, and urban voters. Both a primer for aspiring journalists and an insider’s reflection on horse and ranching cultures, this tour de force memoir honors the practice of writing and its manifold benefits: embracing solitude, avoiding boredom, and accepting aging and death as part of human and animal life. Full of valuable tips, lessons learned and taught, and far-ranging musings on philosophy and poetry, Making Circles demonstrates brilliantly the value and meaning of the term “cowboy journalist.”

Contending that many good poets live and write in the American West, Andrew Elkins suggests that the western landscape--be it New Mexico desert or Alaskan wilderness--shapes the work that is created there. The place's essence and spirit inevitably become part of the work that flows from the poet's creativity. Elkins examines the work of Peggy Pond Church, John Haines, Adrian C. Louis, Richard Hugo, Jane Hirshfield, and several cowboy poets. --Texas Christian University Press.

"One of the finest works to come out in recent years on cowboy songs, in addition to being the first good collection of the cowboy's bawdy material. . . . A must for anyone who is a student of cowboy music--or anyone who just likes the sound of dirty subject matter rhyming." -- Hal Cannon, Journal of Country Music "A brave and honest step toward increasing our understanding of what cowboys really sing." -- Bob Bovee, Old Time Herald "A thorough piece of scholarship and collectanea and a valuable, welcome addition to cowboy song literature." -- Keith Cunningham, Mid-America Folklore "Logsdon has written the book with a scholar's attention to detail. But what shows through the scholarship is the collector's enthusiasm for the material. . . . A superb job in a difficult area." -- Angus Kress Gillespie, Journal of American History "A major contribution to the folklore and popular culture, history, and social psychology of American cowboy culture." -- Kenneth S. Goldstein, former president, American Folklore Society