With a population of 20,000 Elko, Nevada doesn’t seem like it would be the epicenter of very much. But since 1985, the tiny town has been home to the annual National Cowboy Poetry Gathering which celebrates all aspects of life on the range through songs, stories, and most importantly, verse. As genteel as a quiet evening after wrangling steers, Mike Day’s documentary Cowboy Poets introduces viewers to over a half dozen personalities behind the prose who make the pilgrimage each year to share and celebrate in what is an ongoing, oral historical record.
Chances are you’ve never heard of the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, nor realized there were sufficient numbers of legitimate cowboys crafting poetry to maintain an annual event. And while Day himself stumbled across its existence by accident, he’s not particularly interested in sharing a neatly packaged history. Instead, his film takes a leisurely stretch over a year or two, journeying through Utah, Montana, and Arizona mixing profiles of cowpokes with a scattershot overview of cowboy poetry while taking a glimpse at the seismic changes facing the cowboy lifestyle. The loose netting of Cowboy Poets serves Day’s purpose of creating an impressionistic rhythm. It may be in tune with the seasonal life of a ranch, but anyone hoping for more concrete context is out of luck.
Day’s window into this world spans generations. The 86-year-old Wally McRae is arguably the most recognized and respected name in cowboy poetry and serves as connective tissue to the past, but he’s no mere traditionalist. He’s known not just for the quality of his craft, but for breaking convention by addressing social issues in his work, whether it’s government overreach (“Eminent Domain”) or environmental damage to his local community via fracking (“Things of Intrinsic Worth”). From the younger generation, Day spends time with Dylan Clough, an earnest singer/songwriter whose mix of standards (“St. James Infirmary”) and original bruised and booze-soaked tunes see him embrace more familiar tropes. Meanwhile, Henry Real Bird brings a fascinating, if disappointingly unexplored, perspective as the film’s lone Indigenous voice. A poetry reading during which his plainly conflicted feelings surface is genuinely moving, but it is presented as just another fleeting moment in time, exposing the weakness of Day’s fluttering approach which sidesteps any issues before they get too thorny.
Working his own camera (in addition to co-producing, co-editing, and scoring the film), Day is just as interested in the land that informs the poetry as the people who write it. Sweeping drone shots and vast vistas play an equal role in the narrative, serving as a reminder that so much of the American West remains both untouched and under threat. Days’ lens doesn’t blink at climate change, which is having a very real effect on the cowboys’ livelihoods, from fire scorching their land, to drought starving their cattle. A warming planet hastens the demise of an already fragile way of life, one that is profoundly part of America’s identity.
Indeed, cowboy poetry was once popular enough to momentarily break through into the mainstream thanks to recitals on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (footage featured here) or segments on 60 Minutes (McRae was a featured guest). Now that interest has faded, and the form has fallen into a niche where it remains treasured by its practitioners, who are also its custodians. Our brief exposure to this world is over almost as soon as it begins in Cowboy Poets, keeping the unique artistry of cowhand couplets elusive and enigmatic.
Director, cinematography, music: Mike Day
Producers: Mike Day, Sue Turley
Executive producers: Michael Y. Chow, Bonnie Buckner, Arcadiy Golubovich, Tony Hsieh, Andy Hsieh, Bryn Mooser, Kathryn Everett, Justin Lacob, Leslie Finlay, Louis Venezia
Editing: Maya Hawke, Nicole Hálová, Mike Day
Sound: Marcelo de Oliveira
Production companies: Intrepid Cinema (UK, USA)
World sales: Cinephil
Venue: Zurich Film Festival (Documentary Competition)
In English
85 minutes
