By Gail Steiger
I grew up in the 60s listening to my grandfather, Gail Gardner, sing songs and recite poems he’d written about his favorite parts of life, most of which involved cowboying around Skull Valley in the 20s and 30s. “The Sierry Pete’s” or “Tying Knots in the Devil’s Tail” was his big hit. 
In the early 80s, I stopped by my grandparents’ house on Mount Vernon. 

“Hey Granny, where’s Papa?” “Oh, Big Jim Griffiths from the U of A and that nice young Warren Miller from Sharlot Hall hauled him down to the museum to sing some songs and tell stories to some school kids. He was giggling like a teenager when they wheeled him out to their van.”

Jim Griffiths, Warren Miller, Hal Cannon and other western folklorists were finding, interviewing and recording practitioners of what they feared might be a dying art, and one certainly unique to the west. They called it Cowboy Poetry. During the course of their research, they would meet at folklore conferences and discuss some of the colorful characters they’d encountered and some of the great poetry they’d discovered.

In 1985 the folklorists, Hal Cannon in the lead, organized a get-together in Elko, Nevada, in the middle of the winter, with some of the cowboy poets they’d met, to share some poetry, songs and storytelling. They called it a “gathering”. No one was sure what would happen or how many chairs to set up, but the turnout far exceeded expectations. A very good time was had by all. They decided to do it again the following year, and the year after that, and the year after that …

Crowds kept growing with lots of media coverage. Waddie Mitchell and Baxter Black appeared on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Suddenly Cowboy Poetry was cool. Cowboy Poetry Gatherings started popping up around the west.

In 1988 Warren Miller and the Sharlot Hall Museum staff organized the first Arizona Cowboy Poets Gathering at the then-Sheraton Resort. Warren was assisted by Sally Bates who had long-running ties to the ranching community. Sally advised Warren regarding keeping the event as authentic as possible. There were several sessions in a few different rooms. We wheeled my grandfather into one and hoisted his chair up on a little stage, and he got to sing “Sierry Pete’s” one more time. He was 95 that year and not long for this world, but I know it did him a lot of good to think that his song would live on a while. 

That gathering was a hit, too. It gave a bunch of ranch folks an opportunity to share poems and songs and stories about life in the country with folks who didn’t have that anymore. Audiences have enjoyed Arizona Cowboy Poets Gatherings enough to keep returning for 37 years and counting.

A community formed between performers, audience members and people who liked the whole affair enough to join the volunteer committee. Warren Miller and the Sharlot Hall Museum hosted the Arizona Cowboy Poets Gathering until 2007, when Warren retired, handing the reins over to Jim Buchanan and the newly incorporated 501c3 committee in 2008. The Gathering has evolved through the years, as have the audience, performers, sponsors and committee.

I’m grateful that our culture thought it was important for folklorists in the 1980s to pay attention to the pace of change and do what they could to hang on to things of value, and grateful for organizations like the Sharlot Hall Museum, and the Arizona Cowboy Poets Committee for keeping that tradition alive.   

Join Gail Steiger and Amy Hale for the Twilight Tales event “Cowboy Voices: Stories, Songs, and Poetry from the Range,” July 14, 5:00 pm to 6:30 pm in the Sharlot Hall Museum Education Building.

“Days Past” is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners International (www.prescottcorral.org). This and other Days Past articles are also available at www.archives.sharlothallmuseum.org/articles/days-past-articles/1 The public is encouraged to submit proposed articles and inquiries to dayspast@sharlothallmuseum.org Please contact SHM Research Center reference desk at 928-277-2003, or via email at archivesrequest@sharlothallmuseum.org for information or assistance with photo requests.