ART SPUR “Cows,” Winter 2019-2020

Christmas at the BAR-D

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Welcome to the 20th annual Christmas at the BAR-D. We’ll be posting poems, classic, old, and new, starting December 16, 2019. Until then, have a look at Art Spur and please consider pitching in to ensure BAR-D programs can go forward in 2020.

“Supporting the Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry supports the entire community of cowboy/western artists. Before the holidays run up yer back, maul you around, and leave you wondering what happened, step up here and help out this tremendous resource if you can. You won’t regret it, and we can all thank each other! Please donate.” Jerry Brooks

Find a collection of Christmas poems, first started in 2000, here.

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The BAR-D Roundup: Volume Eight (2013) is a double CD compilation of vintage and contemporary recordings of some of the best Christmas cowboy poetry.

In this eighth annual edition of The BAR-D Roundup, a diverse chorus of voices presents contemporary and classic Christmas works. Opening the collection is a beautiful rendition of the shaped-note “Christmas Waltz” by National Endowment for the Arts Heritage Fellow Buck Ramsey (1938-1998), accompanied by his sisters and brother. Great cowboy troubadour Don Edwards recites Badger Clark’s “The Christmas Trail”; top cowboy poet Waddie Mitchell offers his original “Good Gift”; Red Steagall, past Texas Poet Laureate and the state’s official cowboy poet delivers S. Omar Barker’s “Three Wise Men”; and the voice of Jimmy Dean (1928-2010) is heard in a vintage recording of S. Omar Barker’s “A Cowboy’s Christmas Prayer.”

Forty-three additional poets and reciters present a spirited range of poems, many of them from the CowboyPoetry.com archive of Christmas at the BAR-D, started in 2000. Some of the poems are from Christmas Art Spur projects at CowboyPoetry.com, where poets are invited to be inspired by art and photography.

Available for $25 postpaid in the US ($35 international)
Click above for credit card payments, or mail to CowboyPoetry.com,
PO Box 1107, Lexington, VA 24450

Every year’s CD includes a radio public service announcement about the Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry. For this CD, it is delivered by ranch-raised rodeo broadcaster Totsie Slover.

The BAR-D Roundup cover images are usually vintage photos of poets or their forebears. This special Christmas collection veers slightly from that tradition with a photo of “Little Buddy” a steer from the Granley Ranch near Bainville, Montana (thanks to poet, picker, and ranch hand DW Groethe). Inside is a photograph of the annual live Nativity at Dick Noble and Jim and Tina Noble Nelson’s Flying U Ranch, in Cora, Wyoming.

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Find more at CowboyPoetry.com.

ART SPUR

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Lost to us in 2019: Tim Johnson, Leo Naumann, Diane Coggin Merrill, Mike Logan, Lucky Whipple, Rusty Feathers, Bruce Matley, Janice Mitich, Leon Rausch, Marion Manwill, Del Gustafson, and Carol Reffold.

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“Supporting the Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry/CowboyPoetry.com supports the entire community of cowboy/western artists. Before the holidays run up yer back, maul you around, and leave you wondering what happened, step up here and help out this tremendous resource if you can. You won’t regret it, and we can all thank each other! Please donate.” Jerry Brooks

At CowboyPoetry.com (also known as the BAR-D) and the non-profit Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry, our mission is to preserve, celebrate, and promote the arts and life of the real working West. Thanks to a great community of supporters, we have fulfilled that mission for twenty years. Right now your help is needed to continue the work of the BAR-D.

Now is a great time to renew your support or become a donor for the first time. Donations of any amount are valued. Donors at the $50 and higher level will receive the 2020 poster and CD.

You can donate here with a secure, on-line credit card payment.

You can also donate by mail: CowboyPoetry.com, PO Box 1107, Lexington, VA 24450. Find a printable form here.

The Center reaches out to rural communities each year during Cowboy Poetry Week, in its associated Rural Library program. Rural libraries across the West receive the year’s original Western art poster and an invitation for our annual CD for their collections. Poets and musicians bring their programs into libraries and other community centers during Cowboy Poetry Week. To keep those programs going–and all of the work of the Center including CowboyPoetry.com and our social media–we need your help.

Whether you are a renewing supporter (thank you) or a new supporter, your donation will make a crucial difference in the success our programs. Be a part of it all.There are gifts for you, too: U.S. donors of $50 also receive our annual CD and Western art poster. Read about all of the donor gifts here and find information for Canadian and international donors.

Thanks to all of our great sponsors and individual 209 donors to date. Find them all here.

If you have not supported the BAR-D recently, now is the time that your support will make the most critical difference. No amount is too small.

Generous donors make the Center’s work possible.

Through CowboyPoetry.com, our blog, Cowboy Poetry Week, the Rural Library Program, and social media (Facebook and Twitter), we reach many. All of this work is done on a small and careful budget. Your support is essential for it to continue. Find more here.

You can make a donation by check or money order, by mail (use the form here for mail to PO Box 1107, Lexington, VA 24450) or by a secure, on-line credit card payment through PayPal (a PayPal account is not required):

CowboyPoetry.com is a project of The Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry, a tax-exempt non-profit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Service Act. The Center seeks grants and donations from individuals, corporate entities, foundations, and private sources.

Contributions to the Center are deductible for federal income tax purposes (except for the value of any CD received, $15). As in all professional journalistic endeavors, no editorial preference is given to financial sponsors or supporters.

Join others in this community in supporting the BAR-D programs. Find the names of those generous current donors here.

SHOVELING ICE OUT OF THE TROUGH, Bruce Kiskaddon

SHOVELING ICE OUT OF THE TROUGH
by Bruce Kiskaddon (1878-1950)

It’s frosty in the mornin’ when you wake up in the shack.
When you roll out of yore blankets, makes the chill go up yore back.
By the time you’ve got yore breakfast it is nice and warm inside,
But it’s time to git a goin’. You must saddle up and ride.

There is thick ice every mornin’ and you’ve got to chop it off.
Ice is all right in a highball, but it’s no good in a trough.
If the cattle don’t git water it soon begins to show,
They don’t keep in good condition jest a lickin’ up some snow.

I read once in a paper what some wise perfessors think.
They claim it’s only water that us humans ort to drink.
I’m jest speakin’ fer the cowboys, and I reckon as a class,
They’ll drink nothin’ else but water, when perfessors lives on grass.

The cows and calves look sorry, a walkin’ through the snow,
With their backs humped up an shivverin’ and bawlin’ sorter low.
A cowboy’s life’s a tough one but I reckon anyhow,
I’d sooner be a cowboy than I would to be a cow.

….by Bruce Kiskaddon from “Western Poems,” 1935

This drawing, titled “Cows,” by Utah teacher, poet, artist, and storyteller Jo Lynne Kirkwood is the 2019-2020 Winter/Christmas Art Spur, the 51st Art Spur subject from CowboyPoetry.com. In Art Spur, poets and songwriters are invited to let selections of Western art inspire their poetry and songs.

Art Spur submissions may be Winter- or Christmas-themed. All Christmas poems (Art Spur or not) are welcome through Thursday, December 19, 2020. Winter-themed Art Spur poems are welcome through Tuesday, January 14, 2020. Find more here.

Jo Lynne Kirkwood creates an impressive hand-crafted Christmas card each year, and this was her drawing for the cover of her 2017 card, accompanied by her poem, “Cattle at Christmas (or) Homage to Fake News.”

She has a fine book that collects her poetry, “Old Houses,” and recordings. Find more about her at cowboypoetry.com.

South Dakota rancher, poet, and musician Robert Dennis recites “Shoveling Ice Out of the Trough” on this year’s triple CD from CowboyPoetry.com, MASTERS: VOLUME THREE, the poetry of Bruce Kiskaddon (think Christmas giving!).

Much of what is known about Bruce Kiskaddon and his work comes from “Open Range,” Bill Siems’ monumental collection of Kiskaddon’s poetry. Find more in the Kiskaddon features at cowboypoetry.com.

(Please respect copyright. You can share this image with this post, but please request permission for other uses. The poem is in the public domain.)

ART SPUR “Cows,” Winter 2019-2020

Our 51st piece offered to “spur” the imagination is a special Winter/Christmas Art Spur, a 2017 drawing titled “Cows,” by Utah teacher, poet, artist, and storyteller Jo Lynne Kirkwood. In Art Spur, poets and songwriters are invited to let selections of Western art inspire their poetry and songs.

Art Spur submissions may be Winter- or Christmas-themed. All Christmas poems (Art Spur or not) are welcome through Thursday, December 19, 2019. Winter-themed Art Spur poems are welcome through Tuesday, January 14, 2020. Selected poems will be posted.

SUBMISSIONS

• Even if you have a poem or song pending, you are welcome to send one submission inspired by this painting.

• Art Spur subjects are meant to inspire; we look for poems and songs inspired by the piece, not necessarily for a literal description of the image or its subject.

• Do follow our regular guidelines for submissions.

• When you email your submission to poems@cowboypoetry.com, please indicate in the subject line that it is an Art Spur submission.

Find some previous ART SPUR submissions here and here.

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She has a fine book that collects her poetry, Old Houses, and recordings. Find more about her at cowboypoetry.com.