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Two new books to tell about.

A collection of rodeo poems, Buckoffs and Broken Barriers, written over the years is now available online in paperback and eBook. The poems range from humorous to wistful and everywhere in between, and all are the result of years spent riding, working, or watching rodeo. Some are based on actual events. Others ought to be, even if they’re not.

Nine-time World Champion Rodeo Cowboy Ty Murray read the book, and had this to say:

“Rod Miller is a very talented wordsmith who brings out the humor, danger, mystique and drama of cow people and their sport. After reading many of his poems that depict his experiences as a rodeo cowboy, it’s a damn good thing he’s a hand with a pen.”

Coming mid-August is a collection of short stories, Shiny Spurs and Gold Medallions, co-authored with friend and fellow writer Michael Norman. Many of the stories are award winners or finalists for those honors, or recipients of other noteworthy recognition. There are Spur Awards from Western Writers of America, Medallions from the Will Rogers Medallion Awards, Peacemakers from Western Fictioneers, and other honors some of our stories have been fortunate enough to receive. We collected those award winners and finalists, wrote some new stories, and put them together in this two-author collection.

Michael is author of several modern-day Western mystery novels, and also writes short stories. Most are historical tales about the Apache wars in the Southwest. My stories run the gamut in setting, subject,  and style. The book is a Thorndike Press large-print edition, available from online booksellers as well as on the shelves at many libraries.

Whether your taste runs to poetry or short fiction or both, you’ll find Buckoffs and Broken Barriers and  Shiny Spurs and Gold Medallions enjoyable. You’ll get a taste of arena dirt, feel the heat of the southwestern deserts, and hear the creak of saddle leather. You’ll find a touch of anxiety and anticipation, some fear and uncertainty—and even the occasional laugh.

 

Word came down last week that Wallace McRae is dead.

He was among the handful of cowboy poets behind the rebirth of our art and craft in the mid-1980s, and his passing is a loss from which we will never recover.

The word “curmudgeon” was as firmly affixed to McRae as his bushy mustache, and it was a description I believe he carried with pride. To many, he came across as gruff. But underlying that gruffness were two simple facts: he had a low tolerance for bullshit, and he did not suffer fools gladly.

McRae was a poet. More than a mere rhymer, jokester, versifier, or entertainer, he wrangled words to create well-crafted poetry that spoke of the West in layers that plumbed the depths, asking questions and demanding thought. You will not find among his work the cheap emotion, the manufactured pride, the manipulative humor so often found in cowboy poetry.

I did not know McRae well. We were well enough acquainted to speak, but it’s not like we were drinking buddies. Back in 2016, he agreed to be interviewed for a magazine article I was working on, and we had a good, long talk at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada. I got what I needed for the story, and I got a lot more than I expected.

We talked about his early exposure to poetry, including his first public recitation at age four at a community Christmas celebration. And his exposure at an early age to one of the greatest cowboy poets of all time: “We got a livestock publication, my dad did, I don’t know what the title of it was, but it had a monthly Bruce Kiskaddon illustrated poem in it. . . . I knew Kiskaddon before I could read.”

I asked his opinion on what Kiskaddon and other early masters—Badger Clark, S. Omar Barker, and others—might think of today’s cowboy poetry. “My guess is, I think they would for the most part feel that we’re trying hard. But maybe not measuring up. Because so few people are trained now in writing. They haven’t read the classics. We haven’t studied the art enough. . . . I don’t think there’s enough of us that study poetry.”

McRae’s honors are too many to mention. But his legacy is one we should treasure—and we could all benefit from reading and rereading and studying his poetry. He was one of the best of us. And now he is gone.

Tune in.

June 20 will be upon us before you know it. Please mark the evening of that day on your calendar, in your date book, on your phone, or wherever else you keep your life from descending into chaos.

At 7:00 PM that day (that’s MST, my time; it’s 6:00 PST, 8:00 CST, 9:00 EST, and however Arizona sets their clocks these days) I have been invited to appear on LA Talk Radio’s “Rendezvous with a Writer” series. Tom Swearingen, a cowboy poet of renown, will be hosting the show. We’ll be talking about reading, writing, some of my books, perhaps some poetry, and who knows what all. I suspect that by the end of our hour, we’ll have covered all 26 letters of the alphabet.

Follow these links to tune in to watch or listen live on June 20:
* Listen to the audio on LA Talk Radio’s website. (Click “Listen Live” on right side.)
* Watch on Rendezvous with a Writer Facebook.
* Watch on LA Talk Radio Facebook.

If you miss the live broadcast, there is still hope. Follow these links:
* LA Talk Radio Facebook. (Video.)
* Rendezvous with a Writer Facebook. (Video or audio.)
* Podbean. (Audio only. From Podbean you can choose Spotify, IHeart Radio, and so on.)

Whatever all that means. Tune in. Watch. Listen. Don’t miss a chance to see me open my mouth and let random syllables spill out and dribble down the front of my shirt. See you June 20. 

Celebrating Cowboy Poetry Week.

      April 19 through 25 is Cowboy Poetry Week—a time to celebrate the poems and poets who honor cowboy life through poetry. Cowboy poetry is a long-standing tradition, stretching from the nineteenth century to our day, and destined to last as long as there are, or memories of, cattle and the horseback men and women who tend them.

      The poem below is posted in observance of the seven-day jubilee. 

      In spring and fall in the country where I grew up, v-shaped strings of Canada geese honked their way overhead as they migrated in spring and fall. The regularity of their flights reminded me of the cycle of cowboy work, specifically spring branding, and the gathering and shipping of beef cattle to market in the fall. And, the anticipation that accompanies the rhythms and rounds of nature and life and work.

      The Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry has been, since the year 2000, and will continue to be, a driving force in preserving and promoting the poetry of cowboys. Your support will be welcome. Enjoy browsing the archives at CowboyPoetry.com, as well as regular postings on the Cowboy Poetry blog and on Facebook.

MIGRATIONS

I hear them in the evening winging northward—

     Their eager, maybe longing, kind of sound.

It reminds me that we’ll soon be done with calving;

     That branding time ain’t far from coming ’round.

And I think how fall works really ain’t that distant;

     Shipping calves under sundown pewter skies

Wherein arrowpointed flocks are winging southward,

     Trailing echoes of urgent, mournful cries.

Back in the Saddle(bag).

The latest issue of Saddlebag Dispatches is now available. Dedicated to rodeo, this issue of the magazine includes three contributions from me.

First is a cover story, “The Man Who Invented Rodeo.” It’s all about Earl Bascom, whose inventions and improvements and developments back when make modern rodeo what it is today. Bascom is enshrined in numerous rodeo-related halls of fame recognizing his achievements. He was also an accomplished artist.

My regular “Best of the West” column features Larry Mahan, record-setting rough-stock rider and hero of my rodeo youth. Also included is a poem about the struggles of rodeo wives left at home while their cowboys struggle on the circuit. It’s titled “Nowhere Rodeo.”

Go online and take a look at Saddlebag Dispatches, or order a printed copy of the big magazine. If you’re a rodeo fan, you’ll be a fan of this issue.

Crass commercialism for Christmas.

Although it has nothing to do with the reason for the season, this is the time of year we shower one another with gifts. Books make fine gifts. They last a long time and the reader gets to open them again and again.

If you want my opinion (a big IF, I admit), books with my name on the cover make fine gifts. Poems. Novels. Short Stories. History. Humor. Adventure. Drama. Conflict. All set in the American West, the best part of the world. You’ll find enjoyable, engaging reading for anyone and everyone from junior high to geriatrics.

Visit www.writerRodMiller.com and www.RawhideRobinson.com for information and links to people who will take your money (but not much of it) and send you books.

Thanks, and have a Merry Christmas—and all other gift-giving occasions.

Gads, gut hooks, and grapplin’ irons.

Cowboys call them by all kinds of names—gads, gut hooks, and grapplin’ irons among them. Then there’s can openers, rib wrenches, and buzzsaws. And more.

But the official name—if there is such a thing in Western lingo—is spurs.

Spurs are a common cowboy tool, in everyday use wherever horses are saddled. But Western Writers of America borrowed the name and attached it to something uncommon and not everyday. As the organization puts it, “Western Writers of America annually honors writers for distinguished writing about the American West with the Spur Awards.”

Winners of the 2018 Spur Awards were announced recently, and I am honored to know several recipients and their work. And I am especially honored to once again be counted among them.

“Lost and Found” is a short story published last year in Saddlebag Dispatches that tells of a modern-day cowboy who loses a piece of his thumb in his dallies while gathering strays on a remote range, and finds the body of a dead boy dumped in a dry wash.

The judges somehow found it worthy and named it the Spur Award winner for Best Western Short Fiction.

Also published in Saddlebag Dispatches, my poem “The Knowing” was named a Finalist for the Spur Award for Best Western Poem. My friend and fine poet Marleen Bussma won the Spur for her poem, “She Saddles Her Own Horse.”

All thanks to the late Dusty Richards and to Casey Cowan who elected to publish the story and the poem in their magazine. And appreciation to the Spur Award judges who bestowed these honors.

I am more than happy to pound a couple more nails in the wall.

Goodnight Goes Riding off with an award.

Westerners International recently announced the winners of their annual awards honoring the best writing about the West by the nearly 5,000 members of the organization, from some 64 groups in the USA and 16 or so in other countries.

My collection of poetry from Pen-L Publishing, Goodnight Goes Riding and Other Poems, won the Fred Olds Western Poetry Award.

I am, as you might imagine, thrilled with the recognition and look forward to hanging the handsome plaque, featuring the Westerners’ “Old Joe” buffalo skull, on the wall.

You can own your very own copy of this award-winning book (one of its poems was also a Finalist for a Western Writers of America Spur Award for Best Western Poem) by visiting www.pen-l.com, the usual online booksellers, or you can order it through your local bookstore.

The holiday gift-giving season is rapidly approaching (Christmas stuff is already showing up in stores!) so you might want to keep that in mind. Someone you love would love this book.

JINGLE, JANGLE, JINGLE!

Word came down not long ago from Western Writers of America that my novel Rawhide Robinson Rides the Range wins the 2015 Spur Award for Best Western Juvenile Novel. While Rawhide Robinson is likely taking this in stride as he is no stranger to extraordinary events, I am stunned, shocked, surprised, shaken, astonished, astounded, and flabbergasted. Winning a Spur (that really does go jingle, jangle, jingle by the way) to hang on the wall is such an honor I cannot contemplate it. To have three of them to my credit is beyond belief.

And, as if that weren’t enough good news for one day, “Song of the Stampede” from my book Goodnight Goes Riding and Other Poems will be honored as a Spur Award Finalist for Best Western Poem. 

Spur Awards will be handed out at a gala banquet and presentation, and Finalists at a luncheon, at the WWA convention in Lubbock, Texas, in June. It will be a genuine pleasure to be there to accept these awards, and it’s pretty certain the publishers—Five Star for the novel and Pen-L for the poem—will be there to receive their awards for putting ink on my words. All thanks to them. And to WWA for the accolades.

You can add Spur Award-winner Rawhide Robinson Rides the Range to your collection through your local bookseller or online at www.amazon.com/author/rodmiller. Goodnight Goes Riding is available there as well, or through the publisher, www.pen-l.com.

Wrangler Winning Amigos.

In mid-April, two of my friends will be in Oklahoma City to receive what may well be the highest honor anyone who writes about the West can earn.

Each year, the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum bestows Western Heritage Awards in a variety of categories. This year, my good friends Michael Zimmer and Larry Thomas are among the winners—Michael for "Outstanding Western Novel" for The Poacher’s Daughter and Larry for "Outstanding Poetry Book" for The Goatherd. Each will walk down the red carpet to receive The Wrangler, a handsome bronze trophy that all Western writers would love to get their hands on.

Both these men have written a passel of good stuff that deserves recognition, so this honor is no big surprise to those who have read their work. And, having read The Poacher’s Daughter and The Goatherd, I can vouch for the quality of these books. If you haven’t read them, do so. Both are "Outstanding" examples of the best in Western writing today.

Congratulations, felicitations, compliments, cheers, praises, accolades, and a big tip of the hat to Michael Zimmer and Larry Thomas.