40th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering: Full Schedule

The 40th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering—Be the Poem. Be the Song.
#cowboypoetrygathering #westernfolklifecenter #ncpg2025

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Schedule is subject to change. We recommend double-checking Sched regularly for the latest updates.

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12:15pm PST

The Bull Got Out

Thursday January 30, 2025 12:15pm - 1:15pm PST

Elko Convention Center - Turquoise Room

Artists & Special Guests

Yvonne Hollenbeck

Yvonne Hollenbeck is a South Dakota cattleman’s wife who writes poetry about her life on a beautiful, remote ranch where she has spent years putting up hay, feeding a crew, doing bookwork, or working cattle. Although her poetry is often humorous about situations that were not humorous... Read More →

Katie McCall-Owen

Cowboy poet Katie McCall-Owen grew up reciting classics, first with her family and then at gatherings. Katie works in town, but still brands and works cows with friends and family every chance she gets. After stepping away from the poetry side of things for nearly 20 years, she is... Read More →

Andy Nelson

Andy Nelson is an energetic and high-spirited cowboy poet and humorist from Pinedale, Wyoming. As a second-generation farrier raised in Idaho, he traveled the Great Basin with his father on farrier jobs. Now, he and his brother Jim co-host the Clear Out West (C.O.W.) Radio Show weekly... Read More →

Tom Sharpe

Born and raised in south central Colorado, Tom Sharpe grew up working in the family packing plant and feedlot. Convinced from birth that one must be good with horses to be good with cows, he has spent his life studying horses and following cows. Tom has worked the beef industry vertically... Read More →

Thursday January 30, 2025 12:15pm - 1:15pm PST
Elko Convention Center - Turquoise Room

Poetry/Prose, Day or Deluxe Pass

Ticket Type Day or Deluxe Pass

1:45pm PST

Between the Silences

Thursday January 30, 2025 1:45pm - 2:45pm PST

Elko Convention Center - Turquoise Room

Artists & Special Guests

Maria Lisa Eastman

Maria Lisa Eastman and her husband Skip recently retired from their farm and ranch in Wyoming's Big Horn Basin. They now live in Sonoita, located in the high desert grasslands of southeast Arizona. Maria Lisa is really enjoying the softer weather and more time to continue her lifetime... Read More →

Amy Hale

Amy Hale is an award-winning author who lives and works on the Spider Ranch, a 50,000-acre cattle operation in central Arizona. She and her husband Gail Steiger cowboy together, spending many nights sleeping on the ground in remote camps, cooking over an open fire, and gathering cattle... Read More →

Henry Real Bird

Henry Real Bird, a member of the Apsáalooke (Crow) Nation, grew up ranching on the battlegrounds of the Little Bighorn. He still lives on the Crow Reservation in Montana, saying “this is it, I’m not going anywhere.” A former rodeo cowboy and bronc rider, now a renowned poet... Read More →

M.L. Smoker

M.L. Smoker is Nakoda, Dakota, and Lakota, a citizen of the Fort Peck Tribes, and rooted in her family’s homeplace Tabexa Wakpa (Frog Creek). M.L.’s poems speak to themes of personal struggle and identity, drawing from Native American culture, language, and history. “Being... Read More →

Thursday January 30, 2025 1:45pm - 2:45pm PST
Elko Convention Center - Turquoise Room

Poetry/Prose, Day or Deluxe Pass

Ticket Type Day or Deluxe Pass

2:45pm PST

Thrown but Not Broken

Thursday January 30, 2025 2:45pm - 3:45pm PST

Western Folklife Center - G Three Bar Theater

Artists & Special Guests

Marleen Bussma

As a young girl, long hours spent on horseback herding cattle stirred Marleen Bussma’s imagination and sparked a desire to emulate Dale Evans. Marleen, described as a formidable storyteller, draws from the lessons she learned growing up on her North Dakota farm. She believes that... Read More →

Jarle Kvale

Jarle Kvale turns his experiences with horses, rodeo, and North Dakota rural living into humorous verse. He's been writing cowboy poetry for over 25 years, sharing his stories with friends and family members over trail ride campfires, at various community events, and at cowboy poetry... Read More →

Kye Rieff

Kye Rieff’s poetry comes from years spent on the ranch and in the arena, and provides an authentic look into the joy, humor, heartbreak, and hardship of the cowboy life. Kye has ridden saddle broncs, been a professional bullfighter, trained racehorses, started colts, and dayworked... Read More →

Sandy Seaton Sallee

Sandy Seaton Sallee grew up at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone Park where she drove four-up stagecoaches. She was born into a Montana ranching family and worked ranches in New Mexico after college. Sandy and her husband Scott live in a log cabin above the Yellowstone River in Paradise... Read More →

Thursday January 30, 2025 2:45pm - 3:45pm PST
Western Folklife Center - G Three Bar Theater

Poetry/Prose, Day or Deluxe Pass

Ticket Type Day or Deluxe Pass

8:00pm PST

Now That's Classic

Thursday January 30, 2025 8:00pm - 9:30pm PST

Western Folklife Center - G Three Bar Theater

Everybody loves a classic. And, everybody loves it when reciters take the stage to honor the greats of their field. Join poets Marleen Bussma, Andy Hedges, Bill Lowman, Jake Riley, and Tom Sharpe for their favorite classic cowboy poems. They’ll take turns sharing beloved touchstones of the tradition. They’ll go rounds delivering masterpieces that still seem fresh today. And they’ll bandy rhymes that have stood the test of time. This show has cowboy trimmings and cowboy substance…now, that’s classic!

Sponsored by Stockmen’s Casino-Ramada by Wyndham

Artists & Special Guests

Marleen Bussma

Andy Hedges

Andy Hedges is a songster, reciter, storyteller, guitarist, and collector of cowboy songs and poems. The son of a schoolteacher and a rodeo-cowboy-turned-preacher, Andy grew up in Tokio, Texas, where his family paid rent on an old farmhouse by looking after a few head of cattle. There... Read More →

Bill Lowman

Bill Lowman and his wife JoAnn and family own and operate a 20,000-acre generational ranch in the remote North Dakota Badlands, where they are widely known for their love of and respect for the well-being of their livestock and pets. As a multi-talented visual, literary, and performing... Read More →

Jake Riley

Jake Riley grew up, for the most part, in the upper Arkansas Valley of the Colorado mountains. He began roping and rodeoing as a kid, which led to helping out at local ranches, which spawned his love for cowboy culture. Jake has always enjoyed rhyming, publishing some of his first... Read More →

Tom Sharpe

Thursday January 30, 2025 8:00pm - 9:30pm PST
Western Folklife Center - G Three Bar Theater

Poetry/Prose, Ticketed

Ticket Type Ticketed