On March 7, 2011, Nevada senator Harry Reid, then Democratic majority leader, took to the floor of the Senate in a black suit and gold tie to oppose H.R. 1, a "mean-spirited" budget bill that proposed eliminating—among a slew of other programs—both the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)."These programs create jobs," he argued. "The National Endowment for the Humanities is the reason we have, in northern Nevada every January, the Cowboy Poetry Festival. Had that program not been around, the tens of thousands of people who come there every year would not exist."Never mind that Reid grossly exaggerated the Gathering's attendance—at the time, the annual event was luring roughly 6,000 to 8,000 people—or that federal grants represented less than three percent of the operating budget for the Western Folklife Center, the parent organization. The very idea of a cowboy poetry gathering was shark bait for a hungry shiver of Tea Party Republicans. Like the notorious and brutally misinterpreted "shrimp on a treadmill" study, the notion of subsidizing a rendezvous of rhyming cowboys perfectly showcased their claims of frivolous federal spending. That Reid defended the event in lockstep with Pell grants and Homeland Security investments likely didn't help. For months to follow, Republicans frenzied on the chum.
Today, federal funding for the arts and humanities seems poised once again for the chopping block. Last month, the White House Budget Office included both the NEA and NEH—in addition to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting—on its "hit list" to curtail domestic spending, despite accounting for less than 0.02 percent of the federal budget. Progressives will undoubtedly push back, but one can bet they won't again be citing the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in riposte.But what if Reid—despite undeniably poor timing and a stunning tone-deafness—had a point? What if the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering and the hundreds of other gatherings like it all across the country are exactly what we need? When the Senate designated the Elko gathering the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in October 2000, the resolution acknowledged the gathering's keen ability to serve "as a bridge between urban and rural people by creating a forum for the presentation of art and for the discussion of cultural issues in a humane and non-political manner."So, I think if I was the President
of this home of the free and the brave,
I'd close up all those departments
and think of the money I'd save.
A few weeks after Trump carried Election Night, I sent a quick email to poet Paul Zarzyski, a former bronc rider and dyed-in-the-wool liberal who has been performing at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering since 1987. I'd been corresponding with Zarzyski for several months, hoping to scratch beneath the surface of a genre so easily dismissed as doggerel and so often laughed away. He'd made no attempt to conceal his politics, and knowing he considered Donald Trump synonymous with "egomaniacal sanctimonious evil," I was anxious to hear from him in the aftermath."The dilemma for me, at 65, Carson, is that I need to find a way to get a fuck-of-a-lot tougher—emotionally, physically, philosophically—at a time in my life when I'd hoped maybe I could relax a little," he wrote back.Beaten by the news into seclusion at his home in Great Falls, Montana, the old stomping grounds of cowboy artist Charles M. Russell, Zarzyski questioned the very notion of reconciliation in an era of invective social media and the conscious proliferation of alternative facts.
"Yes, there's a lot of division everywhere, about everything. But these kinds of gatherings—they bring us together. And maybe it's just because we're being nice, but maybe not. Maybe our stories… can make a bridge between these horrible divides."—Amy Hale Auker
Despite the nearly incoherent last line, the crowd erupted in applause. Roberts knew it would, grinning victorious beneath the brim of his hat. Later the same day, an older man standing behind me in the concession line claimed college students vote for liberals because they don't know what hard work means anymore. And a few hours after that, Russell and Roxanne Boothe, a middle-aged couple killing a few hours at the bar before the evening show, lectured me on the many ills of the inner city."A cowboy way of looking at stuff is all what nature and God give you. There's nobody to blame the drought on. There's nobody to blame the weather conditions on. The problem with the inner city," Russell tells me, "is they want to blame somebody for their problem. So they're sitting here, 'Well, we're living in poverty.' Hey! You don't have to stay there. You can get out!"but the government's harassin' the ranchers
and PETA's givin' rodeo heck
I think they're all a bunch of limp-wristed wackos
Who couldn't make a pimple on a tough man's neck
On the last day of the national gathering, Zarzyski shares the stage at the Western Folklife Center with three other poets—Levi Romero, Olivia Romo, and Ofelia Zepeda—for a morning session called, simply, "Western Poetry." Afterward, the two of us wander upstairs in search of an empty room for a quiet interview. I'm eager to know if the gathering pulled him out of his funk, if "the spirit of events" here offered even a modicum of hope. But first I ask about the show."I tried not to think about it on the stage very much," he says, "but I got up there, and I wanted to remind the audience that we're here because of their vaquero ancestors, the first cowboys, the lingo and skills of whom we celebrate in poetry and song. The session should've been titled, 'Spanish Is the Loving Tongue,' the opening line to Charles Badger Clark's poem, 'A Border Affair.' I stopped just short of losing it and saying, 'So fuck Donald Trump and his fucking wall.'"
Face-To-Face
Carson Vaughan is a freelance writer living in Nebraska. Follow him on Twitter.Out of nowhere, you find yourself
placed daily before the fortress,
rustic logs throbbing
something from within
you vaguely recognize
as music—so primal,
so otherworldly in its purpose,
you are at once drawn closer,
cautioned back. Succumb
to ugly logic, to mean-spirited
reason, or religion,
and you, believing you shun
merely the unknown, will flee
unwittingly from beauty. Trust the blood,
however, waltzing to four-part harmony
within the heart, and you will be moved
to witness, through the chinking's
thin fissures, the shadows
of the enchanted. Then, and only then,
might you choose to follow
a force you'll lovingly call your soul
through huge swinging doors
thrown open to the glorious
commotion of it all.