My Favorite Book, Part 29

We citizens of the United States sometimes forget that we do not own the West. Most everything that counts as cowboy came to us from south of the border, courtesy of Spanish and Mexican vaqueros. And their influence, always adapted for regional use, did not stop at the Canadian border. Cowboys are big in Canada.

I was reminded of that fact with this novel, Breaking Smith’s Quarter Horse. The book was recommended by my friend Doris Daley from Alberta. She is as fine a poet, reciter, and writer as you’re likely to find anywhere.

Written by Paul St. Pierre, the details of cowboy life in Breaking Smith’s Quarter Horse will be recognized by anybody who loves and lives the West, but with a unique north-of-our-border flavor that captures the quirks and customs of a time and place where the West was wild, the winters cold, and a sense of humor a necessary tool in coping—the sense of humor (or ‘humour’ as they spell it in Canada) perhaps most important of all. As you smile through page after page, and occasionally laugh out loud, you’ll wonder if the Indian cowboy—a horse whisperer of sorts—will ever find time in his not-so-busy schedule to see to the breaking of Smith’s quarter horse.

I thank Doris Daley for the recommendation. You will too.

 

Doris Daley is up in the night.

After reading Canadian poet extraordinaire Doris Daley’s new book, Poems from the Million Star Resort, I sent her this brief “review”:

Poems from the Million Star Resort

Is a treasure, I'm pleased to report.

Every poem, every page is a treat

Providing much pleasure en-suite.

The poem from which the book draws its title is based on the author’s love of wide-open Western night skies, and the other poems in the collection cover the ground from prairies to peaks and ranch life to rodeo.

Doris is a fine writer with a clever grasp of language and a remarkable ability to turn a phrase while telling an engaging story. And she is equally adept with humorous and serious verse, looking beyond the easy laugh or cheap sentiment to achieve true humor and deep emotion. The book also includes thoughts about poetry from several poets of Doris’s acquaintance.

Visit Doris’s web site to obtain a copy. It’s a book that deserves a slot on your bookshelf—or kept where it’s conveniently at hand en-suite. (Unless you’re Canadian, you may have to look that up.)

More stuff hot of the press.

The new issue of Ranch & Reata magazine just landed in my mailbox. If you haven’t seen the publication, it’s well worth a look. It’s big, it’s colorful, it’s beautifully designed and, being a print publication (with an online version as well), it really is hot off the press.

Among the offerings in this issue is a story I wrote about photographer Kevin Martini-Fuller. For 30 years he has made portraits of cowboy poets at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, and several of those portraits accompany the article—including the faces of my friends Doris Daley, Yvonne Hollenbeck, Paul Zarzyski, and Gail Steiger.

The story also covers Kevin’s cowboy poetry exhibit all the way across the sea in France.

And, of course, there’s a lot more to enjoy in the new issue of Ranch & Reata, including an article by Hal Cannon about the multi-talented songwriter, poet, writer, and man-of-many-hats Andy Wilkinson. Andy has long been on my short list of people I would like to know.

Find out more about the magazine here: www.ranchandreata.com.