ELKO — The National Cowboy Poetry Gathering drew in performers from a variety of backgrounds, all of whom shared a sense of community and love of rural lifestyles.
The “Horses of Course” presentation on Thursday featured Kye Rieff, a Montana rodeo professional, 2024 Buck Ramsey scholarship recipient and founder of the Christian ranch ministry Top Hand Clinics, as well as poet, Wyoming rancher, and equine assisted therapy expert Maria Lisa Eastman; and western singer-songwriter Kristyn Harris.
Maria Lisa Eastman performs at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering on Feb. 1, 2024.
Poignant poems about valuing ranching animals were the name of the game.
Rieff shared his experiences with training dogs and horses. His poem, “Just a Bay,” expressed appreciation for a simple ranch horse who gets the job done. Rieff said he got into poetry in order to express his emotions. The 2024 gathering is his first time in Elko.
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Harris sang the equestrian-themed tune “Let’s Do It For Him” as a tribute to her first horse, who she raised until he was 28.
“I try to work on songwriting a little bit every day. And, so, oftentimes I’ll come up with a concept or work on a few lyrics first, but then, as I’m kind of finishing the song, the melody kind of comes with it. But I’ve written a couple songs where the melody comes first,” she said.
The presentation took place in alternating style, showcasing different angles of relationships with horses, whether as ranch assistants or as friends.
Kristyn Harris sings and plays guitar at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, with Maria Lisa Eastman and Kye Rieff watching, Feb. 1, 2024.
Eastman read a poem about an old, traumatized mare she adopted. “We looked again at your weariness at your great size and strength, saw the flick of a soft eye and decided to make you an offer.”
The performers granted each other sparks of inspiration, with poems calling songs to mind and vice-versa.
For example, Rieff’s poem about how his daughter connected with a horse led to a song from Harris about “riding like a girl.”
Eastman explained how she introduces western beauty to seniors, saying, “We bring themes from the ranch into the retirement center, and then collect thoughts and memories.”
“One of the programs that we do is we do we bring two little miniature horses into the local retirement center. And we actually go into the building and the ponies have to wear diapers and special shoes,” she said.
“We started a program called ponies in poetry for dementia care. And because many of the people that we work with in their live with some level of dementia, and it turns out that people, young people with dementia, can actually write poetry. A lot of them are really good at rhyming.”
She said she was inspired to do so after “driving by the retirement center every day and wanting to bring some smiles in there.” She is relocating to Arizona.
Eastman also works with children who have mental trauma. She shared a poem one student wrote about a weary horse finding a safe place to live.
She closed out the session with a visceral poem about a horse’s senses. “You, too, could learn to hear the pitch of an ear, atop temples of footfalls.”
Friday’s performances
On Friday, Eastman and Harris returned to the Elko Convention Center, this time accompanied by Crow Nation member and former Montana poet laureate Henry Real Bird. The theme was “All Creatures Great and Small.” Both sessions were in the center’s Turquoise Room.
Henry Real Bird speaks at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering on Feb. 2, 2024.
Real Bird’s vivid spiritual tales brought indigenous people’s relationships with animals to life. He shared a story passed down from his grandmother about bringing fat to a medicine man.
“The medicine man pulled the fat out and sang his songs,” he said. “The first light went up, came down. Finally on the fourth one that went up a spark, a flash went up from the sky and just broke the big storm wide open to where the sun was shining. And the men that were still in decent shape, they went out looking for buffalo and found some on the other side of the ridge. They were bundled up in the stone too. And so they killed some and brought them back to the people.”
Real Bird was appointed poet laureate of Montana in 2010. He rode across the state handing out poetry books to children.
Also on the morning’s slate, Eastman paid tribute to the miller moths of Wyoming. “Millers are tough, not like butterflies, whose wings you must not touch lest you brush off their magic dust crippling them forever. Yes, it’s true Millers can take some handling. This gives them a chance, however slight, to survive the grip of a grizzly bear who makes meals of them.”
She also shared more details about her charitable work with horses. “As part of our program, we rescued horses, or bought unwanted horses, or horses that have hardships themselves, and then made them whole and then enlisted their help to help with people.”
Kristyn Harris sings and plays guitar at the National Cowboy Poetry Gatheting on Feb. 1, 2024.
So, she shared a poem about giving an elderly horse a new home. “She already knows something’s different. I’ll pay the man, pay the brand inspector. Slip the black halter on her head and lead her into the trailer. I’ll let their disbelief bounce off my back and tell her not to worry. We’ll drive over the high pass through the snow head home where all the others already know something’s different.
As a tribute to her lifelong dream of owning cattle, which she realized by buying a herd of black angus, Harris sang “Cows Around” by Corb Lund. She also sang her own comedic tune “The Mule Song” about dealing with a mule’s stubbornness.
The combination of spoken and sung lyrics during these National Cowboy Poetry Gathering events came from a mixture of perspectives from around America, but all shared a common goal of appreciating nature and animals.
