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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10:30am PST

Nature Calls

Friday January 31, 2025 10:30am - 11:30am PST

Elko Convention Center - Turquoise Room

Artists & Special Guests

Dick Gibford

Dick Gibford is still working horseback on the Walking R Ranch in south Central California. He has cowboyed around the West for 30 years, with the past 20 spent on this rough and rugged chunk of real estate that has become his adopted home. With a string of four mountain-raised horses... Read More →

Jonathan Odermann

Jonathan Odermann grew up on a ranch north of Medora, North Dakota. After a short time working as a mechanical engineer in the city, Jonathan and his wife Marie returned to the Badlands to raise cattle on the family ranch. Much of Jonathan’s poetry is inspired by the mechanical... 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 →

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 →

Friday January 31, 2025 10:30am - 11:30am PST
Elko Convention Center - Turquoise Room

Poetry/Prose, Day or Deluxe Pass

Ticket Type Day or Deluxe Pass

1:15pm PST

Grace & Grit

Friday January 31, 2025 1:15pm - 2:15pm 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 →

Patricia Frolander

Wyoming Poet Laureate Emeritus Patricia Frolander is author of award-winning books including Married Into It and Second Wind. For more than 50 years, she has ranched in the Black Hills, enjoying a profession that brings families closer to livestock and nature, and that develops pride... Read More →

Betty Lynne McCarthy

Betty Lynne McCarthy has three award-winning volumes of poetry and has been sharing her work for decades throughout the United States and Canada. She grew up along the banks of Cedar Creek in Eastern Montana, on the range the XIT Ranch left Texas to get to. A lifetime of ranching... 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 →

Friday January 31, 2025 1:15pm - 2:15pm PST
Elko Convention Center - Turquoise Room

Poetry/Prose, Day or Deluxe Pass

Ticket Type Day or Deluxe Pass

1:30pm PST

Yvonne Hollenbeck

Friday January 31, 2025 1:30pm - 2:15pm PST

Western Folklife Center - G Three Bar Theater

Poetry/Prose

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 →

Friday January 31, 2025 1:30pm - 2:15pm PST
Western Folklife Center - G Three Bar Theater

Poetry/Prose, Day or Deluxe Pass

Ticket Type Day or Deluxe Pass