In-depth examination of a distinctive and community-based tradition rich with larger-than-life heroes, vivid occupational language, humor, and unblinking encounters with birth, death, nature, and animals. The collection covers every imaginable aspect of cowboy poetry: its history, its themes, its techniques, and its individual poets and shows that cowboy poetry interweaves two thematic strands: a fierce defence of an endangered way of life and a dynamic celebration of organic wholeness, camaraderie, and individualism.