Five days. Between 4,000 and 5,000 attendees. Six locations (eight if you count the different venues at the Strater Hotel). Thirty-seven poets and musicians. A parade featuring the Diamond Z English Shire Horses from Utah, a team of six gentle giants averaging 18½ hands high. Art gallery openings, trail and train rides, film screenings, including a documentary premiere and more – it must be time for the Durango Cowboy Poetry Gathering, now in its 27th year.
For many locals and visitors, it’s a highlight of the year.
But have you ever wondered how it all comes together?
“We’re working on it year-round,” said talent wrangler Karren Little. She handles everything to do with performers, from invitations to contracts, and the jigsaw puzzle of scheduling. “Almost half of the performers are new this year because we like to keep it fresh.”
She attends the Western Music Convention and Awards in Albuquerque every year, she said, and at least three gatherings in different parts of the country. This year, she traveled to Golden; Cimarron, New Mexico; and Elko, Nevada.
“I do it on my own dime, and it’s an expense,” Little said. “But I’ve loved the West all my life, and this is my contribution to trying to keep history alive. I was a cowgirl wannabe, so at least this way I’m close to people who are.”
The scheduling is no small task. The Saturday free, themed sessions at four different venues downtown can take six or seven passes to make sure she has a good mix with two poets and two musicians at each session, the performers are getting breaks and no one’s doing four sessions in a row, which isn’t always possible.
“The rest of it is a piece of cake once I have that schedule down,” Little said. “And this year, we had a performer die, but I was able to get another performer. I couldn’t pull it off when one pulled out two weeks ago. The other performers, like Sam Noble, are picking up the extra sessions.”
It’s not all fun and glamor.
“I saw they had a kids’ performance at Elko, and I had to go,” she said. “It was torture, with doting parents and mediocre kids. And then Tanner Lauman, who was 10, came on stage and made the whole thing worth it.”
She gave him her card on the spot and told him to call her. He’s one of the performers in this year’s gathering.
For Thursday and Friday, Little scheduled groups of performers to blanket the county, visiting 16 schools, both public and private, senior centers and care homes.
“We have a hard-working board,” Little said. “Carol Bruno handled the outreach to all of the schools and centers, and Greg Darling recruited the drivers. The drivers have fun getting to know the performers, and the performers talk about what they’re going to do.”
The outreach is one of 12-year-old cowboy poet Thatch Elmer’s favorite parts.
“In Durango, I really enjoy going around to the schools,” he said, “and having kids be so interested in what I do. It shows them if you put in the effort, you can do something you care about.”
Thatch, who hails from Wyoming and lives on a ranch where his family raises saddle horses, started his career two or three years ago, after his father wrote a few poems and Thatch memorized them. Now, he writes his own poems and is booked at 25 to 30 cowboy poetry gatherings every year. He had to start attending virtual school because he was missing so many Thursdays and Fridays, not just because of cowboy poetry but because he also competes in rodeos, riding miniature bulls and team roping among other events.
He has developed a good rehearsal routine.
“I have an old train whistle I use for a microphone,” Thatch said, “and I stand in front of my mom and dad and sisters and old cow dog to practice.”
One performer new to the Durango gathering will sound a bit different than the others.
Carol Heuchan hails from Hunter Valley, New South Wales, Australia, where it’s called bush poetry.
“My life was horses until about 12 years ago, when the poetry started taking over,” she said. “It’s very different here. In Australia, the poets and musicians are very separate, but here we’re all together.”
Are there any other differences between American and Australian gatherings?
“It’s big fun here,” Heuchan said. “We have a lot of competitions, which raises the bar, but it doesn’t build camaraderie.”
Heuchan, like Little, has always been an admirer of the West, and like most of the poets in the gathering, writes her own material.
“Some start with a goosebump feeling and come fairly quickly,” she said. “Sometimes I get commissions, and those can be more difficult. But if I had $1 for every time someone says ‘There’s a poem in that …’”
Cowboy poetry and music may seem like it belongs to an earlier age. But as far as Thatch is concerned, that’s the appeal.
“People think it’s a dying art form,” Thatch said. “But it’s a cowboy tradition we need to keep alive. For many people, a visit to the Bar-D Wranglers is a favorite childhood memory. Imagine if that went away. It’s my responsibility to keep it alive.”
An earlier version of this story had photo cutlines that misidentified the school where cowboy poetry entertainers visited.
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