Rodeo: Photography by Norman Mauskopf by Ben Maddow (review)

Reviews 69 After Barbed Wire: Cowboys of Our Time. ByKurt Markus. (Pasadena, Cali­ fornia: Twelvetrees Press, 1985. 96 pages, $50.00.) One hundred years after L. A. Huffman first photographically captured the cowboy in Before Barbed Wire, it is appropriate that Kurt Markus has chosen to title his collection of cowboy photographs by paying homage to their originator. Markus’black and white photographs are simultaneously eloquent and austere. This is not, however, an update on modern ranching, but is more of a nostalgic regression back to the cowboys and cowboying in the 1880s as prac­ ticed today. The concentration of the subjects in the old-time buckaroo tradi­ tion is geographically narrow, somewhat romantic, but totally charming and compelling. The dirt and the stains on the clothing are organic. You’ll find no Conoco 10W-30 here; nor will you find neon, braided nylon reins or Fords pulling gooseneck trailers. And despite the title of the book, you’ll find little barbed wire. What you will find are slickfork saddles, chink chaps, unroached manes and dusty desert range. Unflinching and proud, here are cowboys either at work, or relaxed and unsmiling, challenging the photographer and his lens. At first glance After Barbed Wire is a collection of photographs without written copy; music without words. The words, if you need them or want them, are there, however. The viewer is free to provide the words or to have them choke in his throat like a sob over a way of life that isbeautiful and grim, proud and hard and although threatened with extinction, eternal. WALLACE D. McRAE Rocker Six Cattle Co., Forsyth, Montana Rodeo: Photography by Norman Mauskopf. Introduction by Ben Maddow. (Pasadena, California: Twelvetrees Press, 1985. 96 pages, $30.00.) The sport of rodeo attracts huge audiences annually, in part at least because it recreates the romance of the Old West for people today. This world of the rodeo cowboy is graphically and perceptively portrayed in the black and white photography of Norman Mauskopf. The book, in a format twelve inches wide and nine inches tall, quite appropriate for a coffee table collection, contains less text than is usually found in these books. Fortunately, the nearly seventy pictures, most covering an entire page, need little explanation. In fact, they express in stark terms the reality and the romance of professional cowboys and their environment. The volume contains the expected action shots of the major events— bull and bronc riding, roping, bulldogging, clowns at work, and even speciality acts. More important are emblems of this life—saddles, belt buckles, gloves, hats, female followers, and impromptu dressing rooms and sleeping quarters. Although no fear shows in the faces of the competitors, ample evidence of 70 Western American Literature pain appears in a bandaged arm, one cowboy down in the arena, and refer­ ence to another man killed in a bulldogging accident. Captions reveal the names of some men and identify locations in various parts of the American West, mostly Wyoming, Texas, Idaho, Colorado, Oregon, and California. A limited edition of five thousand copies in casebound covers, the book features inside the covers portraits of eight young bronc riders, most of them with their gear. Followers and scholars of the sport will find much to admire in this unusual book that documents the contemporary rodeo cowboy. LAWRENCE CLAYTON Hardin-Simmons University Plaintext: Essays. By Nancy Mairs. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1986. 154 pages, $15.95.) Nancy Mairs is a well-known poet. Her book In All the Rooms of the Yellow House won a recent Western States Book Award for poetry. She holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Arizona, where she is a project director for the Southwest Institute for Research on Women. Plaintext is her first collection of essays. A feminist, Mairs is unafraid to confront the rough strife of her own life as a woman. These are personal essays. They discuss sexism, suicide attempts, rape, physical disability and the realities of motherhood. “I have tried to make everything clear, plain, to myself first and then to others who may then make the leap to making their own experiences plain to themselves,” she says. Her words sound...