Baxter Black, the country’s most famous cowboy poet, has witty and heartfelt poetry about cowboys, feedlots, and vast landscapes that have made the Western doggerel tradition more like folk art. He died at home on June 10th. A ranch on the outskirts of Benson, Arizona. He was 77 years old.
The cause was leukemia, said his wife, Cindy Lou Black.
It’s worth pausing to ask why cowboy poetry exists in the first place. After all, cowboys are not well known for their communication skills. Still, this genre is thriving. More than 100 cowboy poetry festivals are held each year, and Mr. Black, who is far away, was frequently featured as the main event.
A mop-head-sized handlebar mustache under a gray registerle hat modeled himself as something like Will Rogers on the plateau. He seeded his writings with a blend of gentle humor and folk wisdom wrapped in tight rhymes and loose meters, as in his poem “Take Care of Yer Friends.”
Friends are words I won’t throw away.
It’s been used and abused, but I still like the sound.
I save it for those who did it right
And I know I can count on it when needed.
Wordsworth did not, but Mr Black did not claim to be a genius. Cowboy poetry begins as a way to avoid boredom on the trails and tell a story among men who rarely break books, and continues to appeal to those who may be threatened by formal poetry.
And he said cowboy poetry was fun. Forget the immortal suggestion. Black’s poem wisely explained horse manure, the evil of vegetarianism, the benefits of artificial preservatives, and more.
Someday I’m just sitting in a locker on the balcony and everyone will say I look good,
I’m so well preserved that no one knows I’m dead unless they read my expiration date.
His playful poetry was contagious. Newspaper profiles often featured headlines such as “Poem on the Range” and “Write’em, Cowboy.” Several have declared him the American “poet lariat.”
Former rodeo rider, veterinarian of large animals, and primarily identified as a poet, Black was even more prolific as an essayist and radio commentator. His weekly column, “At the Edge of Common Sense,” has been published weekly in over 100 newspapers for 40 years. His weekly radio show “Monday’s Baxter Black” was heard on about 150 stations.
If people outside the western countryside knew his name, he would appear on Johnny Carson’s “The Tonight Show” many times, specializing in making it easy for international listeners to tweak. It’s possible that he’s been a guest commentator for NPR.
Mr Black wrote more than 30 books, including poetry, fiction and children’s literature, and sold an estimated 2 million copies, his wife said. He also released some audio recordings of his work. It was a particularly popular medium among fans, inserting tapes during long trips to the Great Plains.
Writer Calvin Trillin wasn’t familiar with casual poetry himself, calling Mr. Black “probably the most successful living poet in the country.”
Baxter Ashby Black was born on January 10, 1945 in Brooklyn, where his father Robert was serving in the Marines.
Robert received his PhD in veterinary medicine and took his wife Theodora (Ashby) Black, Baxter, and three brothers to a series of academic posts after the war. He finally landed at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, where he was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture.
Robert Black became famous for his highly competitive livestock circuit and judged what happened in the Southwest. This activity immediately attracted his son. By his third grade, Baxter had his own cow and by middle school he had his first horse. In high school, he was chairman of the local branch of Future Farmers of America (now a national FFA organization).
“Agriculture, or being close to the planet, is a good way to express it, I’ve always been there.” He spoke to musician Andy Hedges For his 2021 podcast “Cowboy Crossroads”. “There are things that parents can give their children that no one else can.”
After Robert Black died of a heart attack in 1960, Theodora Black returned to school to earn a master’s degree and worked in New Mexico. She also got a job for her boy. Baxter worked on the ranch and earned extra money as a bull rider.
He attended New Mexico State University, but said his wife was accepted three years later without a bachelor’s degree in a doctoral degree in veterinary medicine from Colorado State University. He graduated in 1969.
Mr. Black, along with his wife, survives with his brothers Bob and Steve. His son, Guy. His daughter, Jennifer Cavage. And four grandchildren.
After graduating from graduate school, I noticed that I was hired by a livestock company in Idaho and was traveling from ranch to ranch to check for cattle. Along the way, he picked up stories and jokes, and soon realized he had the skill to associate them with the next batch of listeners.
In 1980 he moved to Denver, where a pharmaceutical company hired him to present the drug to ranchers and other veterinarians. Finding a boring job, he began sneaking his presentation on some of the stories he had picked up over the years.
Suddenly he was invited to a meeting just to talk, not to talk about drugs and cows. When his employer fired him in 1982, he left veterinary medicine behind.
Most of his audience consisted of people from the ranch who could be involved in his story, such as the North Carolina Cowherd Association and the California Cotton Growers Association. He rode a growing cowboy poetry circuit and began to attract national media attention. It found his homely wisdom to be fascinating.
Realizing a lack of news about the western countryside in national press, in 1988 he recorded a poem about a wildfire in Yellowstone. A few days later, the producer called and asked if he could do it and if he had more. His commentary has been carried out regularly for over 10 years.
Black made a distinction between a “kawaii” audience in the west and a “generic” audience in NPR and elsewhere.
“There’s a lot too bad to do on National Public Radio, such as talking too much about cow poop,” he told The Wall Street Journal in 2001. Get someone to hit it. “
He maintained a busy schedule of up to 150 times a year until the mid-2010s, when dementia began to undermine his public speaking. But he continued his writing. He submitted his last column in December 2021.
“I’m very fortunate to be part of the wonderful world of horse sweat, soft noses, close calls, and dusk on the trail,” he writes. “I like horses to lead an important life.”
