Where the West still speaks: The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering
STORY BY HEATHER PARISH
In this feature, we follow TMR’s Heather Parish as she spends two days at the 41st National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, one of the U.S.’s most unique arts festivals, moving from open mic poetry sessions and headline performances to hands-on workshops, gallery exhibits, and the informal moments in between that define the experience. The accompanying images offer a window into a place where art and everyday life meet and where the West continues to define itself in real time.
Pictured at top: Headin’ Out (2025) by Clara Smith.
In late January, as snow gathers along the alpine canyons of the nearby Ruby Mountains, the small high desert town of Elko, NV becomes a crossroads for poets, musicians, makers, and storytellers. Though its location feels remote—four hours east of Reno, three hours west of Salt Lake City—the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering draws people from across the country. For one week each year, the Western Folklife Center hosts what it describes as “a coming-together of people rooted in the poetry, music, and arts of cowboy country.”
Where the West Gathers
What affected me most about the two days I attended wasn’t just the art. It was the texture of a place where art and life aren’t easily separated. The language here is fed by lived experience—of land, labor, history, and an uncertain future. This isn’t a hazy, sepia-toned vision of the West. It carries the character of the people who arrive here: resilient, hard-working, and direct coming from work in ranching and mining. And they aren’t only rural. Participants arrive from places like Los Angeles, Portland, Atlanta, and Dallas, adding their own independent spirit into conversation with the Interior West.
The Gathering doesn’t announce itself with pretension. It unfolds in hotel conference rooms, galleries, workshops, and late-night saloons. Moving between venues, I passed a rancher in a dusted hat chatting with a poet holding a notebook and overheard someone ordering a craft espresso while a nearby group debated saddle leather. Trucks, Priuses, Subarus, and Teslas all share the same parking lots. Elko feels both rooted and in motion—a mix of working people, artists, and those who resist being classified at all. (It has a bit in common with Fresno that way.)
For example, the biggest crowd reaction of the first day didn’t come from a poem or a song. It came when a food truck ran out of chili.
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That detail says something important. This is a community that treasures the everyday as much as the elevated. As one attendee put it in passing, “We are relational out here. Openness, honesty, authenticity—that’s important to us in Northern Nevada.” Another added, half-joking, “Whatever you do, don’t come in in a suit and tie—unless it’s western cut.”
Voices at the Mic
One of the clearest windows into that blend came during an open mic session hosted by Nevada State Folklorist Brad McMullen. The format was simple: sign up, step up, share a poem. But the range was anything but. Daniel J. Walker, a former school bus driver from Santa Barbara, read an original piece about fatherhood and passing down the legacy of Judaism, his voice catching at just the right moments. Kathy Smith from Arizona delivered classics like “Old Clothes” and “Roped and Tied” with firm rhythm. Karen Stockett, a rising voice from Montana usually featured on larger stages, appeared here simply as another participant—proof that at this gathering, hierarchy softens.
Not every reading landed perfectly. Some were tentative, a few under-rehearsed. But even those moments proved essential. The audience attended them in a way that felt intentional. When a performance did soar—like Glenn Blair’s powerful delivery of Jeff Streeby’s “John Silvertsen, The Farrier’s Horse”—you could feel the shift: a stillness, then a shared exhale.
Who Gets to Remain
That ethos carried into the “Here We Remain” reading, a program centered on what it means to stay—on land, in culture, and in identity. Colorado poet George N. Wallace explored the divide between those traveling through “flyover country” and the lives of folks below. M.L. Smoker examined equilibrium through the lens of Native womanhood. One notably striking piece recounted how her family’s regalia was held by white store owners who refused to return it—a quiet but cutting meditation on ownership, memory, and persistence. These were not nostalgic reflections; they were grounded, contemporary, and often unresolved.
Songs of the Range
Music, of course, played a central role. Michael Martin Murphey’s featured performance was both retrospective and immediate. He spoke about learning from blues musicians in East Texas and about carving out space for what he calls “cowboy music”—distinct from mainstream country. “When you say you play Western music,” he noted, “you find there are suddenly fewer slots.” Joined by longtime bassist Gary Roller and early-career musicians like Leah Sawyer on fiddle and guitarist Carin Mari, his set moved between older hits and newer material, culminating in a quietly powerful rendition of his signature song, “Wildfire.” The encore, “Summer Ranges,” felt less like a finale and more like a continuation of the music into the next chapter.
The Work Behind the Poetry
Other performances at the Gathering added their own textures, especially in their attention to the day-to-day realities of Western life. Dave Stamey, a Tulare County cowboy poet and musician, joined Jeff Carson, Wylie Gustafson, and the Kristyn Harris Trio for “Just Another Day at the Office,” a set that blended humor and lived experience in its tribute to working lives—human and animal alike. Rusty Phillips joined Ross Knox, along with singer-songwriters Matt Robertson and Trinity Seely, in the session “Buckaroo Who?” Attentive to the cadence of language itself, this quartet captured the tribulations and triumphs of a buckaroo’s daily collaboration with livestock and weather.
Beyond the Stage
The visual arts found space in the Wiegand Gallery, where the principal exhibit, “A Cowtown State of Mind,” added one more layer to the weekend. Photography, painting, mixed media, and handmade gear echoed the themes heard in the performance halls: landscape, livelihood, culture, and a steadfastness forged through change. A magnet poetry installation invited visitors to contribute their own words to the exhibit, while a newly installed black box theater screened films like “A Ranch Musical ” and “Fire Tender,” the latter documenting Yurok knowledge keeper Margo Robbins and the revitalization of Indigenous fire practices in California. Together, these details expanded the gathering beyond performance into participation and reflection.
Hands at Work
Elsewhere, the Gathering welcomed hands-on engagement. Workshops ranged from the practical to the unexpected: guitar repair, hat making, rawhide braiding, and sessions in cumbia dance, zydeco, and craft cocktails. There are often workshops in Basque or Italian cookery as well. At the “Type Like a Cowboy” workshop, Angelenos Amir Beardsley and Zen York provided portable vintage typewriters and guided participants in writing poetry, the tactile rhythm of the keys reinforcing the physicality of storytelling. Sitting there, listening to the steady tap tap tap of typing, I was reminded how making—whether poems, instruments, or meals—sits at the heart of this culture.
The Town That Hosts It All
What emerged at the gathering wasn’t a singular definition of “the West,” but something more layered. Mining communities, Indigenous perspectives, ranching traditions, immigrant experiences, and contemporary artistic practices all intersect here. There’s a shared awareness—a desire for life to be simple and straightforward, paired with the recognition that it rarely is.
Elko itself mirrors that complexity. For a town of 21,000, its nightlife vibrates with live music and conversation. You can move from a quiet diner to a lively bar serving both Mexican beer and craft cocktails. Casinos sit alongside museums, community theater, fine art galleries, and festivals celebrating Basque heritage and regional industry. The town resists easy narratives, much like the people who gather there.
A Living Tradition
The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering isn’t about preserving tradition. It’s about inhabiting it, questioning it, reshaping it, and sharing it in real time. Whether through a poem, a song, a handmade hat, or a spontaneous conversation in a crowded hallway, the experience doesn’t feel like stepping into the past. It reminds us that we are all standing in a dynamic, evolving present.
If you’d like to attend the 42nd National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, it’s worth planning ahead. Memberships to the Western Folklife Center are available year-round and provide early access to tickets. General ticket sales typically open in late summer, and hotel rooms fill quickly. The Western Folklife Center’s newsletter offers helpful updates as the event approaches.
And if you go, don’t wait too long to get the chili.
Pictured above: Heather Parish and her father Dennis at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering 2026.
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Kathy
Good job Heather. Brilliantly written. Reads like a review from the New Yorker.