Not the most inspiring pic, I realize. But for probably very good reasons, you’re prohibited from taking pictures or video in the actual sessions unless you have written permission. So, I figured I’d get a picture of the lines you have to wait in (not very long) to get into the performances at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering.
I like lines, by the way. The people-watching is usually excellent, I don’t mind chilling out for a few minutes in a well-organized kind of way, and I usually make some friends. Like Hazel, a traveling nurse from Florida who was posted nearby and just decided to drive out to Elko to see what cowboy poetry was like.
What is cowboy poetry like, you ask? Well, it ranges (har har), but the most common meters you’ll hear are the fourteener and ballad meter–after all, the cowboy poem’s closest kin is the Country & Western song. Thematically, cowboy poems sort roughly into two big bins: comic poems about mishaps with horses, cows, fencing, etc.; or, sentimental poems about western flora, fauna, and lifestyles (patriotic poems go in this category). Structurally you’ll get a set-up with a problem, like, “Shoulda known by the way the colt set his head that I was headed for a fall….” then some development that frequently leads the listener into a certain way of thinking about the situation before the reality of it is revealed in the last stanza or two, usually with a pivotal pun or some other call-back to the language of the set-up that prompts the listener to understand the whole poem in a new light. If you want some examples, the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering website has plenty.
As you can probably guess, since the whole point of the genre is maintaining a dwindling tradition, it’s pretty hide-bound (tee hee) in that respect. Mostly older white dudes, in other words, and politically speaking, the whole festival gives off a reddish glow. But there were definitely some different notes and colors. I went to a “sound topography” session by the artist who does this podcast, and a really wonderful mini-concert by these folks from the paniolo cowboy tradition in Hawaii. In recent years, the NCPG has added sessions on sustainable agriculture, hula, and healing from trauma. And then you have the shock-value folks: for instance, at one open mic, a woman read a poem about the Donner Party that might best be described as erotic feminist cannibalism. While it definitely grossed me out, I had to respect the poet’s attempt to shake up the hypermasculine vibe of the festival.
Speaking of hypermasculinity, the fashion is on point at the NCPG. My friend Meghan’s husband Andrew, whose aunt helped start the event nearly 40 years ago, gave me to understand that Paris Fashion Week has nothing on the scrutiny that cowboys give each other at the NCPG: everything from the rise of your hat to the cut of your jeans to the way you tie your neckerchief is up for harsh scoring. And while I struggled to cut the hipsters out from the herd of legit cowpokes, the locals didn’t. “Well, for one thing,” Andrew pointed out, “nobody around here tucks their pants into their boots.”
Not that the dudes were the only ones dressed to the nines. As you can see in the photo above with that lady on the left, the general dress code among the cowgirls seemed to be “add one more thing” rather than “take one off” before you walk out the door. I mean, why have a cavalry jacket when you can have one with fringe and beaded epaulettes, and a beaded hair clip to boot? (ha ha ha…OK, I’ll stop.) I wondered how some of the women could move with all the silver and turquoise they’d strapped on. Which, to be clear, made me a little jealous.
Favorite moments: a debate between the guy who ran the Indian taco truck and his mom over whether the knife she was using to cut lettuce counted as a “lettuce knife”; the grandma who sat in front of me at the Hawaiian session with her hair beautifully braided in loops on her head and her granddaughter’s arm around her shoulders, tapping gently to the strumming of the ukulele; the lead singer of the Hawaiian group wiping tears from her cheeks as she said how proud she was of her son playing with her and carrying on their ancestral traditions; Hazel sipping her beer at the “A Rose Between Two Thorns” poetry session and giggling that she was drinking her lunch because she didn’t have time to eat between all the great sessions (the bar opened at 10 am); Meghan’s baby Morgan hoisting himself up to wobbly standing with his chubby little fingers hooked in my sandcast bracelet from my friend Geri. What we pass on from generation to generation isn’t perfect, sure. Sometimes it’s even tragic. But it’s undeniably also one of the best and most beautiful things that we make or do for each other.
The Rookery 