Baxter Black (1945–2022) died this summer, on June 10, and his passing marks an occasion to speak of the third wave of Cowboy Poetry — born of the remains of the older work by poets who were nostalgic for the Old West in the first half of the 20th century, and work by the small group of even older poets who had actually experienced cowboy life before the closing of the frontier. Like a surprising cactus bloom, a new Western poetry bubbled up from below in the 1980s. Ignored by the literati, it spawned poetry festivals, poems in local newspapers, and recitations on small Western radio stations. And the moving force behind the revival was a ranch veterinarian who gained a loyal following through his charm, warm voice, and sure grasp of modern Westerners’ sense of themselves. Turning to Cowboy Poetry full-time in 1982, becoming a newspaper columnist, radio commentator, and author of over 30 books, Black was a raconteur and poet, capable of both seriously sentimental and broadly comic verse. He could tell a story, and he could project a mood — sometimes loudly, sometimes softly, but always with an ease that drew in his listeners. In today’s Poem of the Day, our conclusion to a week of Cowboy Poetry, he speaks of Death Valley and other western places — the landscapes that don’t acknowledge human safety or human ease: “the West, boys, she ain’t broke to ride.”

The West
by Baxter Black

They don’t call it Death Valley for nuthin’
And coyotes don’t make a good pet
But livin’ out here with the griz and the deer
You pretty much take what you get

And the Rockies have shoulders like granite
They’re big and they make their own rules
So take what you need but you better pay heed
’Cause the mountain don’t tolerate fools

And the wind is the moan of the prairie
That haunts and bedevils the plains
The soul stealin’ kind that can fray a man’s mind
Till only his whimper remains

You can stand in the canyon’s cathedral
Where water and sky never rest
And you know in your bones that the meek, on their own
Will never inherit the West

It’s wild and it’s wide and it’s lonesome
Where the dream of first blood still survives
And it beckons to those who can bid adios
To the comfort of 8 to 5 lives

So come all you brave caballeros
Cinch up and reach down inside
Till you feel the heat, then take a deep seat
’Cause the West, boys, she ain’t broke to ride

© 2000 Baxter Black. Used by Permission.

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With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by Joseph Bottum with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, the Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.