The Wild West

Source: Speak Up

Language: Advanced

Standard: American

Speaker: Chuck Rollando

THE WILD WEST

The Cowboy Poets

The American West covers more than half of the USA and its history forms a big part of American folklore. The country gradually expanded westwards in the nineteenth century and many of the heroes from those wild frontier days were cowboys. Today the 13 western states remain the home of ranching, riding and rodeos.

Real life for generations of cowboys has meant horses, cattle, open country and hard, sometimes dangerous work. But the romance of life in the saddle has been kept alive through music, storytelling – and poetry. Indeed it has been said that the rhythm of poetry reflects that of ridding.

Pat Beard comes from a well-known rodeo and ranching family in the State of Washington. A former national rodeo finalist, he has 35 years’ experience as a cowboy and horseman. He first learned cowboy and poetry from his grandfather, who emigrated from Holland to the American Northwest back in 1902:

Pat Beard

(Standard American accent):

He had saved some money working and bought a horse when he was 14, ran away from home and went to Nevada. And on these ranches that he was working there he had learned these poems. And so, as a small boy he would tell them to me and so I’ve just kept them. And that’s…while I say I’m not into poetry, these are things that, originally, I assume, they were told over campfires and things to pass the time away. And when you’ve got nothing but hours ridding alone, if you’re a little crafty, you rhyme something, and put it together, and a little bit about the romance of the west, whether it was romance or not.

REINCARNATION!

As well as training horses, Pat Beard works as an adviser at Hamley’s outfitters in the nearby town of Pendleton. This historic cowboy store has been selling saddles, boots, hats and clothing for more than 100 years. The current owner, Parley Pearce, took over the business in 2005. He too is form a local ranching family and, as a young cowboy, used to visit Hamley’s with his father. Pearce enjoys cowboy poems which he believes help to preserve western life. There is a lot of humor in cowboy poetry too, says Pearce. To give an example he reads a favorite modern cowboy poem called Reincarnation:

Parley Pearce

(Standard American accent)

What does reincarnation mean?

A cowpoke asked his friend.

His pal replied: it happens when

Your life has reached its end.

They comb your hair, and

Scrub your neck,

And clean your fingernails,

And lay you in a padded box

Anyway from life’s travails.

The box and you goes in a hole,

That’s dug down in the ground

And reincarnation starts in when

You’re planted ‘neath that mound

These clods break down, just like

The box,

And you who is inside.

And then you’re just beginning

On that transformation ride.

And then with time, some grass

Will grow

Upon your rendered mound

Till one day on your moldered grave

A lonely flower is found.

Then say some horse should wander by

And graze upon that flower

That once was you, but’s now become

Your vegetative bower.

This posy that the horse done ate

Up, with his other feed,

Makes bone and fat and muscle,

Essential to the steed.

But some is left that he can’t use

So it passes through,

And finally lays upon the ground

This thing that once was you.

Then say perchance I wanders by

And sees this on the ground,

And I ponders and I wonders

About this object that I’ve found

I think of reincarnation

Of life and death, and such,

And I come away concluding, slim, you ain’t changed all that much!

Cowboy Info

The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering takes place in Elko Nevada, in late January every year. For further information, visit: http://www.westernfolklife.org 

you can read the original poem "Reincarnation" and many other award-winning cowboy poems by Wallace McRae in Cawboy Curmudgeon (Gibbs Smith, 1992 ) ISBN: 0879054638 US$ 12.

For more details on the historic Hamley's store and range of cowboy accessories, visit http://www.hamley.com