In story and in popular song, the cowboy has long been cast as a loner: a single silhouette on horseback set against an endless Western vista. But if you attended Lone Star Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Bastrop this past weekend, you would've found that the myth runs smack into the fact that cowboy culture is built on connection – to the land, to the animals they work with and to each other.
"We are all connected because of the land, because of the work, because of the art, which is a beautiful, beautiful thing," writer, rancher and Gathering performer Amy Hale said. "So this is my family of heart."
From the campfire to Johnny Carson
Kinship is baked into the history of cowboy poetry itself. People have been writing about life on horseback for as long as there have been animals to herd.
"Agrarian cultures, historically, worldwide, have always had art forms that spring from them," Hale said. "Anybody who's living intimately connected with the land and growing food has had these art forms."
What we now call "cowboy poetry" took shape in the 1970s and '80s, when folklorists began documenting the oral traditions of working cowboys.
The modern revival culminated in 1985, when folklorists from the Library of Congress invited a handful of cowboys to gather in Elko, Nevada. They set out a hundred folding chairs. More than a thousand people showed up. National newspapers took note. Johnny Carson invited poets onto his show. A tradition that had lived quietly around campfires out on the prairie found itself center stage.
A natural home
Texas, with its deep ranching roots and integral part to play in cowboy history and myth, was a natural home for its own gathering. The Texas Cowboy Poetry Gathering ran for 33 years in Alpine until 2019. The following year, husband-and-wife team Kay and Gene Nowell took up the mantle and dubbed the renewed event the Lone Star Cowboy Poetry Gathering. This year's event was split between its original home in Alpine and, now, for the first time, Bastrop (with Bastrop being the larger of the two this year). The Bastrop Gathering brought together 34 performers from across the country for three days of sessions, songs and poems.
Each session unfolds as a song circle: three or four performers taking turns spinning yarns, reciting poems and singing songs. The format itself exemplifies the interconnectedness of the culture. Performers build on each other's stories, following themes, answering one poem or song with another.
"It lends itself to the fire of creativity," Hale said. "There's always going to be poetry and songs springing from that kind of connectedness with the land."
Rhythms of life in the saddle
Authenticity sits at the heart of cowboy poetry – and the performers and poets themselves. The poets aren't performers playing cowboys. They're ranch hands, farriers, horse trainers and people who do the work and live the cowboy life every day.
"Cowboy poetry comes out of the stillness of the prairie," event producer Bob Saul said. The art is rooted in the rhythms of life in the saddle: the long hours working with animals and dealing with unforgiving landscapes.
From comic yarns about recalcitrant steers to touching elegies about trusty old steeds, the stories told at the Gathering were drawn from real life, told by people who earned their spurs.
In one session, Western swing bandleader Kristyn Harris introduced a song by mentioning that her mare was 10 months pregnant (to appropriate claps and "awws" from the audience). Later in the session, performer Pipp Gillette pulled out long, finger-like bones and explained they were the ribs of a particularly ornery cow. He then used those bones as castanet‑like instruments to accompany a bouncy tune sung by multiinstrumentalist Lloyd Wright.
Bastrop Gathering performer Gail Steiger, who has been the foreman of the 50,000-acre Spider Ranch in Arizona since 1995, epitomizes the connection between the life of being a cowboy and the art of cowboy poetry.
"About every day I get a chance to appreciate what a miracle it is to see life grow up out of the ground," he said. "Because I'm lucky enough to get to be where I am, I want to share that with people as much as I can."
These are love songs of a different kind: odes to the land, the animals, the work and the life itself.
"The cow business is kind of an addiction," Steiger said. "Horses and cows don't care what language you speak or what party you belong to. They're going to give you back whatever you give them."
Gathering of hearts
The sessions themselves were rambling, rollicking and delicately beautiful. They were immersive in their dedication to the cowboy way of life.
The threads of the land, the work, the animals, the people and the history were woven together into a single, indivisible fabric throughout the Bastrop Gathering. Surrounded by stories, songs and the Central Texas landscape, the cowboy is not merely an abstract historical figure. The cowboy is a living, breathing, vital part of both the present and the future.
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