Cowboy Poetry: A Gathering ed. by Hal Cannon (review)

Reviews 145 Morning Star. The number of tourists at the Custer Battlefield has increased 20% this year over last, and Custer fan clubs are growing around the world. Slotkin’s study does not just deal with Custer’scareer and the story of the fight but effectively juggles other themes—the interconnection in the press between the Indian menace on the frontier and racial problems in the cities, the political implications of Custer’s career, and the nexus between Custer and the image of the frontier hero a la that frontier trinity—Boone, Crockett, and Carson. The author’s range is as wide as it is deep. There are chapters on 18thcentury Indian wars, Cooper’s Leatherstocking Myth, and Grant’s Peace Policy toward the Indians. This is an exceptional book, massive in its infor­ mation, brilliant in its construction, and marvelous to read. RICHARD A. VAN ORMAN Purdue University, Calumet Cowboy Poetry: A Gathering. Edited by Hal Cannon. (Salt Lake City: Pere­ grine Smith, 1985. 201 pages, $14.95 cloth, $9.95 paper.) Every aspect of this slim volume of poetry reflects the years of tradition that lie behind cowboy poetry. Seldom does one see the attention to detail that has gone into the production of this collection: the color and design of its old-fashioned cover, the nostalgic black and white illustrations, the thin strip of leather serving as a handy bookmark. Most significant of all, however, is its size; at approximately four by seven inches, the book slips easily into the pocket of one’s Wranglers. This is a book meant to be carried and read over and over again, just as the poems contained within have been recited again and again, becoming part of the oral tradition. In this gathering of cowboy poetry, Hal Cannon attempts to strike a balance between the old and the new, presenting, in the tradition of Thorpe and Lomax, classic poems which have survived over the decades, yet including the poems of present day working cowboys. The proportion is roughly onethird traditional to two-thirds contemporary poems. A possible criticism might be that Cannon has deliberately included, with few exceptions, only that contemporary poetry which most closely follows the traditional mode of rhymed, metered prose. This form—the four-line, rhymed couplet, ballad form used in popular nineteenth-century poetry—is the style that traditional cowboy poetry emulates so closely, and it is the close emula­ tion of this style of poetry which has led many critics to dismiss cowboy poetry as “doggerel.” It is not mere doggerel, as Cannon’s collection clearly shows. Instead, the cowboy poetry presented here celebrates a lifestyle that embodies the very essence of the frontier spirit: the freedom to be an individual and to conquer any obstacles which might threaten to eliminate that freedom. The seventy-eight poems in this book, carefully chosen from over ten thousand 146 Western American Literature possibilities, illustrate that the circumstances surrounding the occupation of the cowboy may have changed, but his attitudes have not. Cannon indicates in the introduction that he hopes, through the book, to “puncture” the stereotypical image of the television and movie cowboy by allowing the cowboy poets “to speak for themselves as they celebrate the huge sky, the rodeo, busting broncos, the cattle drive that still goes on, the land, and the life and times of the people who continue, spiritedly, to live that cowboy life.” Cowboy Poetry: A Gathering does just that. It is at once a joyous celebration and a realistic depiction of what it means to be a cowboy, then and now. JAN (UGAN) ROUSH Utah State University The Real American Cowboy. By Jack Weston. (New York: Schocken Books, 1985. 267 pages, $19.95.) The aura of romance that has surrounded the American cowboy for a good many years has been the subject of numerous realistic treatments that have certainly demythologized the cowboy. In addition are the comments of the debunkers of the cowboy myth, who have tended to be vicious in their attacks on this figure. In The Real American Cowboy, Jack Weston adopts a reasonable and objective view as he explores the everyday life of the old-time American cowboy. Although...