Legacy Article - Cowboy Poetry Rides Tall in Alberta

Legacy Article "Cowboy Poetry Rides Tall in Alberta"
Summer 1996
by Juliet Kershaw

"I like to tell a story and I don't mind digging into your soul or mine," Lloyd Dolen says frankly. "I guess I've always been writin' a bit. It's all for fun." Now 79, the acclaimed granddaddy of cowboy poetry in Alberta lives on a quarter section near Cochrane.

"I broke a million horses," he muses. After his dad "come up the trail," Dolen grew up with, raised and trained horses, sending them to buyers down east. He's lived the cowboy life.

When he recites, Dolen's deep soulful voice transports people to endless, fenceless rolling prairie and hills, to a freedom difficult if not impossible to experience today. These lines from his poem, They Belonged in the Saddle, take them back to another time and place:

They always had a saddle horse
Tied behind the bars
They were right at home with a blanket
Underneath the stars.

If they had a can to make some coffee
And a chunk of sourdough
They were ready for the trail
Where ever it might go
If their horse was spooky
Or their bones began to rattle
They pulled their belt up another notch
They belonged in the saddle.

But the men that rode those trails
There is not many left around
And those trails that they rode
Are not easy to be found...

Those trail riding, cattle driving days may be over, but western heritage isn't, Dolen believes. One of the original generation of performing cowboy poets, he first shared his stories from a stage at the early Pincher Creek gatherings and now speaks with heartfelt warmth of deep friendships in a community of close to 100 cowboy poets in Alberta. Last February, he was honoured as a "living legend" at Canada's Cowboy Festival in Calgary.

Today's cowboy poetry gatherings like those at Pincher Creek, explains Dolen, originated around campfires—"You sit around and entertain yourselves." Back at the ranch too, after the day's chores were done, cowboys shared stories either sung or told in verse, spun of experience or reflection, recalling the stuff of cowboy life: cattle drives, round-ups and brandings, past and present. They were humorous, sentimental or serious, and wove meaning or moral through the rhymed verse. That's cowboy poetry—free-ranging, mostly rhyming, the story capturing the rhythm and spirit of ranch life in the West.

Dolen says his poems are mainly "serious stuff—I like to touch people," then adds, "I get to do a lot of funerals." His sense of humour does get the better of him occasionally. He also composes for weddings, anniversaries, school graduations, even off the cuff in conversation when the mood takes him. And he's still performing at gatherings and festivals— three gigs in June alone, including Pincher Creek again this year. As well, he's publishing his second poetry book and reprinting—with help from some of his nine kids—his first book of poems which sold out 10,000 copies.

Not all cowboy poets publish or even write down their creations. "I don't own either a steno pad or a desk," says Don Wudel, one of Alberta's busiest cowboy poets. Last year, he performed at five or six gatherings in Canada, 15 to 20 other evening events, ran his ranch at Meeting Creek and a leather and specialty western goods store in Calgary. A real crowd-pleaser, Wudel still maintains, "I'm blessed with the ability to keep all my poems in my head and that's what I intend to do." A few lines from "The Empty Bunk" show how adeptly he draws listeners into his story:

Old Charlie's boots with saggin' heels
Stand empty by his bunk
And yonder hangs his old guitar
We sure do miss its plunk
We done roli'd up his blankets,
From the cot he'll use no more
I hardly slept a wink last night
From missin' Charlie snore.

Cowboy poetry, Wudel believes, keeps history (particularly western history) alive, by passing down those stories of ranch and range, yesterday's stories and today's. Ranch life may be changing, but it's hanging on and there are still plenty of stories to tell, it seems. Wudel gets together with "some fellers, after a few days of spring or fall work, and we get to talkin' and then it comes around to recitin'."

These informal gatherings persist among cowboys and rancher/cowboys like Wudel, who calls himself a rancher, not a farmer. "Farmers whine and ranchers lament," he insists, giving credence to the term cowboy poetry. Mind you, other cowboy poets make no distinction—call them ranchers or farmers, they keep cattle, cut hay, saddle and ride their horses as they work their land. Although many people romanticize cowboys, envisioning the Hollywood stereotype of the lonesome rider cresting the hill, cowboy poetry is popular precisely because it often conveys the hard realities of cowboy life in the everyday language of that life. It can reflect true grit—or, with the insight of an insider, poke good-natured fun at it.

Bryn Thiessen calls the Helmer Creek Ranch near Sundre home, but he spends almost as much time reciting as ranching these days. One of the first to sign the roster at gatherings, he's in demand. From Grande Prairie to Pincher Creek, he recites in churches, schools, banquet halls, kindergartens and nursing homes. An important aspect of cowboy poetry for Thiessen is the way it records an event—maybe slightly exaggerated—and sometimes allows a meditative moment, revealing the poet's personal thoughts and feelings. Like Wudel, he carries his poems in his head. "When I perform them, I always change them a little anyway," he says. Recently though, Thiessen did have his poems printed in a book called Wind in the Pines, illustrated with sketches and watercolours.

At 36, Thiessen's also president of the Alberta Cowboy Poetry Association, which aims to foster, promote, and preserve cowboy poetry. The association started eight years ago as a handful of people who got together to organize Canada's first formal cowboy poetry gathering at Pincher Creek. Today it's over 80 members strong.

Although cowboy poetry is an old oral tradition that has surged in popularity in recent years among cowboys and city folk alike, you can now pick up books on it, even check out poets and their poetry on the Internet. As well, Karen Clark from the Alberta Cowboy Poetry Association is urging members to commit words to paper or cassette and send them to her to keep in an archives of cowboy poetry at Cochrane. She already has contributions from contemporary poets like Thiessen and Dolen and the collection even includes some of the Canadian West's earliest cowboy poems—dating back to the 1880s. Poets can send their work to Clark c/o Box 142, Cochrane, AB, TOM OSO.

Cowboy poetry has become hot stuff in the '90s. "Can't hardly throw a rock without hitting a gathering," Thiessen chuckles. Back in 1988, for that first gathering at Pincher Creek, organizers wondered if anyone would show up. "Fourteen poets and a few pickers signed up and about 50 people came to cheer them on," recalls Susan Vogelaar, a Pincher Creek poet and early member. Within five years the poetry gathering became the main audience draw for the annual rodeo and gathering. And last year? More than 4,000 folks gathered on Father's Day weekend to immerse themselves in western heritage and entertainment, primarily through poetry, she reports. Local merchants have told Vogelaar their sales were better than at Christmas.

On a smaller scale than Pincher Creek, the Cowboy Poetry and Western Art Festival up north in Stony Plain has been attracting a growing audience since it began a few years ago. People sit on hay bales, munch peanuts, every so often hoot with laughter and sometimes wipe away a tear. They've come from across western Canada and even from the U.S., suited up in hats, jeans and boots, just as you'd expect. They've come to meet, visit, and catch up with fellow cowboys—to enjoy stage shows, whoop it up on the dance floor, view western art and commune on Sunday at the unique, non-denominational, cowboy church service that includes audience participation.

Event organizer Frank Cantafio works 11 months of the year rounding up the poets, reining in expenses, wrangling with the media and riding herd on volunteers. He explains his success: "You gotta have the right atmosphere, a good MC and a great sound system. Then you have to bring the audience in close so they can see the facial expressions of the poet on stage. They have to be able to catch every word." He adds hesitantly, chuckling, "We also give out free peanuts," to keep the audience from talking when they should be listening. Participation from all is encouraged. "On average the poetry audience is about 400 at any time. This number swells to 900 on the Saturday night. Sometimes the best shows are in the audience where the poets not on stage are mingling. We've got constant spontaneous audience participation."

Once up on stage, entertainers are given free rein on the understanding that all fare dished up be good clean family fun. So far the festival doesn't turn down any poet who applies to perform. "Our festival is definitely professional, but not commercial," Cantafio emphasizes, "It's not a money making venture. We depend on volunteers, from those who run the site to the entertainers themselves. The first year we lost money but now we've paid back that year's debt and can cover expenses."

In contrast to Stony Plain, Canada's Cowboy Festival in Calgary started big and then doubled its size in just the two years it's run, drawing more than 8500 people over three days this past February. It featured art, poetry, music and film, scheduled performances and open microphone sessions. For western ranch men and women, the poetry reflects an authentic traditional lifestyle, both remembered and remaining, but endangered. But it also holds special appeal for urban cowboy "wannabes" too, particularly baby boomers, notes John Hill, General Manager of the Calgary Convention Centre and creator of the city's festival. "Nostalgia," he concludes, "Cowboy poetry represents a simple way of life, a popular culture that a whole generation of people in their 40s and 50s grew up with. They support it." No kidding. It has been a real profile-builder for the Convention Centre in the winter doldrums and an economic boost for the city, he confirms.

Historically cowboy poetry reflected the life of the cowboy, his cattle and the range. Today, women have entered the ranks of cowboy poets in increasing numbers, broadening the scope of topics to include ranch-life on the home front. Susan Vogelaar estimates that about half of the Alberta Cowboy Poetry Association members are women.

Cowboy poets don't get rich from reciting—they count themselves lucky to get mileage. (My minimum charge is a cup of coffee, Thiessen laughs.) So what's the attraction for poet performers, who like Rose Bibby, a poet from Westlock, spend much of each summer on the road travelling the festival/gathering circuit? "Well, once you get that special reaction from the audience, you want to keep going back to share with them some more," she explains. Little wonder they react to her—she's quick and funny and tells tales on herself and her neighbours. The more she performs, the more she writes, she adds. Here's "Cowboy Poet," from her book Rosie Rambles On...:

I met him down at Spruce Meadows
The place where they ride jumping horse
When I first looked at him,
I wondered How he'd be able to give his discourse.

'Cause he had a chaw of tobaccy
Stuffed in his lip from cheek to cheek
It looked like he'd just bin a stuffin'
It in there, full-time all week.

When he got up there, he spoke quiet
Didn't open his mouth very wide,
I supposed that what he's afraid of
Is the juice runnin' down the outside.

He had many a good story to tell us,
That he'd been there, was not a hunch,
And the miracle I found in the tellin'
Was that feller didn't have to spit once.

"Cowboys want to feel connected," Bibby says. "And I write about their lifestyle and herit ige. You can write about it if you live it, and if you're lucky, your parents lived it too." Bibby's been to Eiko and says people relate to her there just the same as in western Canada. After all, she says, "People there are working and doing what cowboys everywhere do."

Although the lingo of her poetry is ranch-bred, Bibby reaches well beyond traditional cowboy culture. She writes from her (woman's) point of view about relationships, marriage, roles, dreams, sorrows and all those little things in life that bedevil the best of us whatever the landscape out our front door. "I end up telling your story back to you; that's why my poetry works for an urban audience too."

Cowboy poetry can grab people no matter where they live because it's colourful and everyone loves a good story. Often, it also expresses a special connection to land and animals, a traditional connection that is rapidly changing. To get the real story, you have to listen closely, really listen; you can often find wisdom between the lines, notes Thiessen. "It depends on what the poet has been through," he says. "There can be some hidden stuff in there."

Although it's hard to believe now, he claims he was a shy child. Today, he recites in classrooms to turn kids on to poetry as a way of expressing what they feel, hear, see, and think. As well, whether it's funny or serious, he believes cowboy poetry can be a way of ensuring that awareness and appreciation of the legacy of the West is passed on to a new generation.