Tom Swearingen, Oregon cowboy poet, pictured on stage at Portland's Artichoke Music in 2018.
Courtesy Elizabeth Campbell
When Tom Swearingen wrote his first poem to remember a friend who had died, he didn’t consider himself a poet. But the small group of friends and family he read it to told him to keep writing. He did, and he says because he long enjoyed Western music, art and literature, including the cowboy poetry of Baxter Black, that was the style that fit. Within 10 years, Swearingen had published a collection of poetry which was named the 2020 Cowboy Poetry Book of the year by the International Western Music Association. The group also named him best male poet in 2019 and 2022. He also got Willamette Week’s nod in its “Best of” edition this year. Swearingen, like other cowboy poets, is particularly busy in the summer months with performances at rodeos and other events. He’s done with rodeo appearances for this summer, but you can still catch him this month and through November at various gatherings around the state. He joins us to talk about his work and read some of his poetry.
This transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.
Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. Tom Swearingen says that when he wrote his first poem to honor a friend who had died, he didn’t really consider himself to be a poet. But the people around him who heard him knew better, and Swearingen kept writing. About six years later, he published a collection that was named the 2020 Cowboy Poetry Book of the Year by the International Western Music Association. The group also named him best male poet in 2019 and 2022. He even got Willamette Week’s nod in its ‘best of’ edition last month. Swearingen is done with rodeo appearances for the summer, but you can still catch him through November at various gatherings around the state, and he joins us now. Welcome to the show.
Tom Swearingen: Thanks for having me; appreciate being here.
Miller: Could we start with a poem from your book ‘Reflection’? It’s called ‘One to Ride the River With.’
Swearingen: Yeah, I’d be happy to do that.
That cowboy on the paint horse
A pretty darn good pard
He’s been there, seen it, done it
Through times both good and hard
He’s been at it for some time now
A good long stretch of years
Roundin’ up calves and mommas
And turnin’ bulls to steers
He’s worked on some big outfits
Been boss on one or two
Taught a lot of other hands
A bunch of what he knew
And man, have we learned plenty
‘Bout punchin’, and much more
Getting advice a wise man
Be best to not ignore
Taught us what it means to be
A worthy friend and hand
About love and work and honor
And how to treat the land
He told us, “Don’t just do a job
You give it all you got
You only go round one time
Life’s worth your best shot”
He’s shown us the importance
Of keeping our word true
That if we make a promise
Do what we say we’ll do
We’ve watched him facing hardship
With determination
And no matter the outcome
Show appreciation
For the folks that stand beside you
That come along aside
Ride with ya’ through the humps
And cheer ya’ through the ride
“One to ride the river with”
That’s his reputation
The kind you can depend on
In that situation
I’ve had the good fortune
Of knowing good men
The kind you can look up to
And hope to see again
Not just for their achievements
Although they’re worth remark
But for how they live their lives
How they give a spark
Kindling those around them
To glow and grow and give
Make the world a better place
And show us how to live
I ask you Lord for more friends
Like the one thought of now
Give me more just like him Lord
And please if you’ll allow
A lot more years for my friend
So he can show us more
What it means to live with grace
Before the other shore.
Miller: Did you have somebody in mind when you wrote that poem?
Swearingen: Yeah, I did. I wrote that for a friend named Trey Allen when he was suffering with cancer. He was a great cowboy and a really, really highly respected cowboy poet. We became friends in his later… before his death, obviously. I wrote that with him in mind and was able to share that with him before he passed. He did, he did pass. So I perform that now in his honor and his memory. Yeah.
Miller: What led you to write the first poem for your friend who had died? I mean, because, as I noted, from what I’ve read, you didn’t consider yourself a poet at that point.
Swearingen: Correct.
Miller: It’s a big deal to write a poem in remembrance. What led you to do it?
Swearingen: Well, I will say that I was a fan, an appreciator of cowboy poetry – the form, the style. I’d been entertained by Baxter Black and Waddie Mitchell and others… and appreciated going – buying a ticket and going – seeing those folks perform and others who did their own poems and shared the classic cowboy poems that go back to the turn of the century. I mean, not this turn of the century, but 150 years ago. [laughing]
Miller: When I hear that, I’m old enough to know. [laughing]
Swearingen: So that was something that I enjoyed. It was something that just resonated with me. When a friend of mine – a horse riding buddy of mine – died, I just had it in my mind that I would write a few lines of poetry in that style that I enjoyed listening to. I had a couple of months to think about it. He had the tradition of hosting a bunch of us; we’d haul our horses to his ranch in Molalla, Oregon. We’d ride out of his ranch and up into the timberland and then come back and have a big old potluck with his family and friends to kick off New Year’s, early morning New Year’s Day. He passed in October, and his wife and family decided they were gonna do it again as a memorial. So, I had a couple of months to think about it, and I just got to working on it. I just started to think about his life, some funny little insights into his life and some things that were important to him, and I just wrote. That was it. It was just to share some thoughts in his honor. And, yeah, that was it.
Miller: How did people respond?
Swearingen: Quite well. I mean, I will tell you, it was very emotional. I read it. I do things now by memory for the most part, but I read it. The paper was shaking like a leaf. I couldn’t even hardly get out the words, but I got the poem out. And it was very well received. His wife and others were saying, ‘Wow, that was beautiful. I didn’t know you wrote poetry. I didn’t know you were a cowboy poet.’ I was like, ‘Well, I’m not.’ They go, ‘Well, yeah you are, because what was that?’ And that, I guess, told me that I had maybe had the ability to share some feelings in that way.
I then became more of a student of the form and meter and worked harder at it. Yeah, it was well received and people would go, ‘Well, you should write more.’ And I’m, ‘Na, I don’t think so’ and whatever. But then I had a thing happen with a horse that was kind of funny, and I wrote a little poem about it. Then something else happened, and I wrote a little poem about it. I would be with horse folks here and there, or family, and they’d say, ‘Hey, have you written anything new?’ And maybe I had, and I’d say, ‘Oh, yeah. Here’s one about…’ this or that or whatever. I just, one thing led to another, and I had a handful of poems that people wanted to hear. Then I got a call asking how much would I charge to come and [laughs] and entertain? And I’m like, ‘Charge?’
Miller: I can make money from this?
Swearingen: Really?
Swearingen: That led to a paid gig. Then the phone rang because somebody saw me, and then somebody else told me whatever. And the next thing you know, I go, man I better write more because people were saying, ‘Well, now, do you have an album?’
Miller: They want fresh content.
Swearingen: Well, they walk up to me with a $20 bill in their hand after the show or after my little thing and go, ‘Do you have an album?’ And I go, ‘No.’ And they go, ‘Oh. Well, too bad.’ And they put the money back in their pocket.
Miller: Could we hear another poem?
Swearingen: Yeah.
Miller: …very different tone: “Ropin’ Mama’s Llama”?
Swearingen: Yeah. Yeah. I introduce this poem by telling audiences that I do know how to rope. Often when I’m entertaining at cowboy gatherings and what not, there are cowboys in the audience. I say, ‘Well, you know, I can throw a loop. I know some different shots for different circumstances. I can throw a houlihan and figure eight, sometimes even on purpose’ and kind of make fun of my roping. But I say, ‘Well, you know, if people have seen me rope, they know – and I have to agree – that my very best roping takes place in my imagination,’ which is where this takes place.
I have gone and roped a llama
Way high up on its neck
So, there’s like 18 inch of flex and muscle
Giving me pure heck
The thing is spittin’, kickin’
Sure-footed feet a flyin’
Making me wish I’d instead
Looped a rabid mountain lion
Yeah, I have gone and roped a llama
Houlihan to camelid
Not, by far, the brightest thing
I can say I ever did
Because when this tale gets passed on
And you know darn well it will
It’ll be all about my target
Not about my roping skill
Sidebar: Why, when spelling llama
Are there two and not one L?
One is silent, so not needed
Just the same as the word hell
Which is what I’ll get a bunch of
Despite my prayers and hopin’
When my wife finds out her yarn supply
Is what I’ve been out ropin’
Yeah, roping mama’s llama
That’ll put her in a stew
Something I should have thought about
Before my catch twine flew
She’ll question if I’ve got a brain
Make for certain I regret
Lofting that one-swing flip shot
At the critter she calls a pet
She’ll make a list of honeydews
Ask big favors for amends
How long she keeps demanding them
Well, I guess that all depends
On if I can act real humble
And show some true remorse
And I don’t suppose it’d hurt none
If I bought her a new horse.
Miller: That’s my guest, Oregon’s own Tom Swearingen, who has twice been named the best male poet by the International Western Music Association. What makes cowboy poetry, cowboy poetry?
Swearingen: In one answer to that is it’s occupational poetry. It’s, you know, there’s a handful of occupations that have a body of music…
Miller: Like fisher poets.
Swearingen: Fisher poets… Logging has some songs and poems, mining has some songs and poems, military battle songs and poems. Cowboy poems and songs are that. It started as… My understanding from folklorists and historians: After the civil war, the trail drive days, sort of the launch of the cowboy moving cattle, had cowboys – mostly young boys, moving cows – who entertained themselves by making up songs and stories and sharing those with other people. The folk tradition would be that somebody would learn that and pass it on and so on, so forth. So, it’s about the land, the livestock, the work of cowboying, either by or for or about cowboys. Yeah, that’s the best way to answer that I think.
Miller: You came to this… I mean, you’ve grown up in Oregon and lived among and ridden horses your whole life, as I understand it. But, as you’ve noted, you were in advertising, not a cowboy yourself. Did that work in advertising – where I imagine there was wordsmithing involved and trying to keep an audience’s attention for a 20-second spot – did that help you as you transitioned to this new avocation?
Swearingen: I think it helped. It’s very different. When I was in advertising, I was writing 30-second commercials and six-word billboards and 60-second commercials and whatever…
Miller: And not too much rhyming, probably.
Swearingen: Not too much rhyming. It’s different. But, I’m not afraid of putting pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard is how I work. So the idea of writing and crafting words is not new to me. So it transferred somewhat. Yeah.
Miller: We have time for one more poem. Do you mind giving us a ‘Quiet Conversation’?
Swearingen: Oh, I’d be happy to. Yeah. Yeah, this one also is based on… yeah, this is inspired by a final conversation I had.
Just a quiet conversation
Between friends as they sat
Saddle looking out
Upon the cattle on the flat
‘Bout things that don’t get talked about
Near often as they should
Amongst friends who’ve rode together
For years through scarce and good
Oh sure they’ve done a lot of talkin’
‘Bout what subjects then at hand
About the herds or markets
Or issues with the land
They talked about the need for rain
Spent hours in idle chatter
Solved the world’s big problems
And some that don’t much matter
But today some words were spoken
That they’d never before shared
At least to one another
For now their hearts were bared
For the trail for one was ending
In just weeks or maybe days
His ‘till then’ getting closer
Put both men in a haze
Making words come not so easy
Hard to know just what to say
But still some things need sayin’
And this’d be the day
It started with, “I’ll not forget
All the kindness that you’ve shown
You’ve been quite the friend to me
I’d say the best I’ve known”
With the solemn silence broken
These cowboys talk turned deep
The truths they’d always treasure
And promises to keep
A promise to keep forever
His memory close at hand
To finish things he’d started
And live the dreams he’d planned
A promise to rarely dwell
On low and lean times of the past
But rather focus forward
To pastures, green and grassed
The words that were shared that morning
Were heartfelt and came with tears
Conveying things not spoken
For way too many years
Lord it’s hard to bid your farewell
To a pard who’ll soon be gone
Stepping beyond the daylight
To no more ride the dawn
There was quiet contemplation
Between friends as they sat
The last time looking out upon
The cattle on the flat
Miller: There are obviously some ties here to that first poem I had you read. Is it fair to say that cowboy poetry can be an emotional outlet for an often stoic kind of person?
Swearingen: Oh, well sure. I think there’s no reason that it wouldn’t be or couldn’t be. I think a lot of poets, cowboy poets or people writing cowboy poetry, are expressing things that are deeply important. So friendship, and loss, and love, and whatever, are important things to communicate. And, just as I shared in that silly little mama’s llama poem, there’s just fun stuff, little silly stuff, too, that is entertaining. Baxter Black and others that were primarily known as humorous also wrote deeply serious poems. We think of them often as the funny guy, the guy doing the pratfalls and the physical humor and whatever. But even Baxter wrote really deep, deep poems.
Miller: Tom Swearingen, thanks so much for coming in.
Swearingen: Yep.
Miller: That’s Tom Swearingen, whose award winning book of poetry is called ‘Reflection.’ He is now one of Oregon’s most celebrated cowboy poets.
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