Bruce Kiskaddon
Calendar Poems
1935/2002

These poems were part of the Los Angeles Union Stock Yards monthly livestock letters from 1933 through August 1959. After Bruce Kiskaddon's death in 1950, poems from prior calendars and other published and unpublished rhymes were used for the calendars.

While a few of the calendar poems have been included in books of Bruce Kiskaddon's poems, most were not, making the calendars a unique format and an opportunity for his fans to discover previously unavailable pieces.

To maintain the calendar poems' authenticity and give you a chance to see the January through December calendars in their original format, we have left the original year, 1935, on this calendar. (The dates on the 1935 and 2002 calendars are the same.)

Illustrations by Katherine Field.

Bruce Kiskaddon
Calendar Poems
1951/2001

Bruce Kiskaddon Calendar Poems were part of the Los Angeles Union Stock Yards monthly livestock letter from at least April 1934 through August 1959. After Kiskaddon's death in 1950, poems from prior calendars and other published and unpublished works were used for the calendars.

While a few of the calendar poems have been included in books of Bruce Kiskaddon's poetry, most were not, making the calendars a unique format and an opportunity for his fans to discover previously unavailable pieces.

To maintain the calendar poems' authenticity and provide a chance to see the calendars in their original format, we have left the original year 1951, on this calendar. (The dates on the 1951 and 2001 calendars are the same.) Only one of the 1951 calendar poems was published in any of the Kiskaddon books.

Illustrations by Katherine Field and others.

Bruce Kiskaddon's classic cowboy poetry is well known throughout the world. He did not embellish the life--he remembered and recreated the historic world of the ranch and range of the late 19th and early 20th centuries with words that echo the ones heard on the frontier.

Born in 1878, Kiskaddon started ranch life as a wrangler in Colorado, then worked as a cowboy throughout the West. After serving in World War I, he worked as a "jackaroo" in Australia before returning to the West. In the 1920s Kiskaddon went to Hollywood to wrangle horses and play bit parts in the movies, but realized it was more lucrative, and easier, to work as a bellhop in the hotels. For the rest of his life he wrote and reworked his poetry, publishing books in 1924, 1928, 1935, and 1947.

Katherine Field was born and raised on a ranch in central New Mexico. Her illustrations were featured in most of Kiskaddon's Calendar Poems, in his book Western Poems, and with many Kiskaddon poems published elsewhere. Although the two never met in person, through their correspondence Field's illustrations became, and remain, an important part of his works.

"As the years roll on and history appreciates the folklore of the plains and ranges, these poems by a real cowboy will take on deeper significance and mightier stature." From the foreword written by Wheaton Hale Brewer in 1935 for the book, Western Poems.

The Rope Hoss

You have heard of cuttin' hosses and all the things they knew,
But there's lots of ropin' hosses that is plenty foxy too.
When you're ropin' calves to brand 'em you can guide him 'mongest the stock
With the motion of your body, and he travels at a walk.

When you jump one in the open, then you'd orta see him go.
Over rocks and brush and gravel; takes you right up fer a throw.
If you tangle with a mossback, then you got your work cut out,
And you better have a rope hoss that knows what it's all about.

Old hoss keeps along behind him; never tries to go around,
Till you git a chance to ketch him on a spot of open ground.
Then he widens out and throws him, and keeps a settin' back;
Holds the critter till you tie him, never gives a bit of slack.

If a cow got in a bog hole that old hoss he didn't fail.
He'd keep pullin' with the saddle while you lifted on the tail;
Yes, we've bragged of cuttin' hosses and the things that they could do
But there's lots to say in favor of a wise old rope hoss too.

Bruce Kiskaddon

Price $20.00

Copies of the 2003 Bruce Kiskaddon Calendar Poems are available upon request.
Please call 602 569-6063 or Email: info@cowboyminer.com for pricing.