Politico reports:

In the middle of his tirade against House Republicans’ “mean-spirited” budget bill on the Senate floor Tuesday, the Senate Majority Leader lamented that the GOP’s proposed budget cuts would eliminate the annual “cowboy poetry festival” in his home state of Nevada… For the record, the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering is in Elko, Nev., next January. The 28th annual festival, a “week-long celebration of life in the rural West, featuring the contemporary and traditional arts of western ranching culture,” is expected to draw thousands of people, according to the festival’s website.

My good friend Todd Greenberg has some experience with cowboy poetry:

They used to bring cowboy poets to our schools in Arizona.  I can’t believe this is federally funded stuff.  Don’t get me wrong… cowboy poetry can be cool, I guess, and it’s good work if you can get it, but last thing I wanted to do in H.S. was get dragged to the amphitheater to watch four old guys dressed like cowboys and dramatically read poetry like it was down home Summerstock/Shakespeare and tell us about campfire life. 

I only remember one poem, it was called “Damn ol’ Dog.”  If it didn’t have damn in it no one would have cared.

The two hours I lost that day (and they did if from 6th grade to
12th) could have been summed up by listening to Thin Lizzy’s “Cowboy Song” or screening “High Noon.”  If they really wanted to do kids a favor they should have given everyone DVD’s of “For A Few Dollars More.”  That movie taught me more about life and the Old West than anything else up to that point in college when I first saw it.  Things would have been different if I saw that in H.S.

Todd, once again, thank you for your helpful life experience.