By Stephen Zimmer
S. Omar Barker once described himself as the “cowboy’s poet, not a cowboy poet.” In a writing career that extended over 70 years, Barker wrote hundreds of short stories and factual articles about cowboy life and the outdoors. He is best remembered, however, for his poems, written with wit and understanding about the habits, likes and dislikes of the riding men he knew growing up. Everything he wrote was true to the range.
Omar Barker was born in 1894 on his parents’ homestead in the mountains west of Las Vegas, N.M., the youngest of 11 children. His father was engaged in “farming, sawmilling, preaching and running about a hundred head of cattle.” Although Omar grew up doing his share of the cow work on the ranch, he later claimed the experience never made him a cowboy. He said he had been as familiar with pitchforks, plows, garden hoes, crosscut saws, axes, rifles and fishing rods as he ever was with horses and saddles. Nevertheless, he decided early that his true calling was to write about the range men he knew and admired.
His first attempt at writing resulted in a story about his family’s ranch that was published in a farming magazine. He was 12 years old at the time and received the princely sum of $2 in the form of 100 two-cent stamps for his effort. Nevertheless, the encouragement was sufficient that he wrote for the rest of his life.
After high school, Omar moved from the ranch to Las Vegas and entered New Mexico Normal University where he received a degree in education in 1922. For the next few years he taught English in several small-town New Mexico schools, although he continued to write whenever he found time.
As a diversion, he spent a year as a forest ranger and then bought some cows he pastured in the same mountain valley where he grew up. “At one time I owned a few droop-horned cows and a spotted mule,” he said in describing his ranching. “When I applied for registration with Lazy S O B as my brand, I was told that some other S.O.B. already had it.”
By the end of the decade, Barker decided he had sufficient success in getting his work published to put everything else aside and begin writing full-time. Later in life he estimated that during his career he wrote and published more than 2,000 poems—or verses as he called them—1,500 fiction stories and 1,200 non-fiction articles. All his writing dealt with the Southwest in some way or another, though most were about cows, cowboys or horses.
His writings appeared in magazines and periodicals both great and small and as varied as Saturday Evening Post, Field and Stream, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. The long list of Western magazines he contributed to, most of which are no longer in existence, included Western Story Magazine, Ranch Romances, Thrilling Ranch Stories, Wild West Weekly, Two-Gun Western Magazine, Ace High, Hoofs and Horns, Western Rangers, Cowboy Stories and Rangeland Stories.
Barker’s best-known poem is “A Cowboy’s Christmas Prayer,” which first appeared in Ranch Romances but was later reprinted more than 100 times and even distributed in Braille.
In 1928, he compiled a number of his published Western poems into a book titled, Buckaroo Ballads. That was followed by another compilation, Songs of the Saddlemen, in 1954 and Rhymes of the Ranges in 1968. Fortunately, for the present generation of Western readers, a collection of Barker’s poems was compiled in 1998 under the title Cowboy Poetry, Classic Rhymes by S. Omar Baker.
Barker was once notified that a 12-year-old boy and aspiring cowpuncher had selected one of his poems to recite in an interscholastic competition. The boy’s English teacher, however, would not allow him to use the poem until the ungrammatical cowboy lingo had been corrected. The boy stuck to his guns and refused to enter the contest if he could not use Barker’s poem as written.
Omar wrote the boy a consoling letter, apologizing to him that the poem did not fit the teacher’s standards. He explained that “a basic principle of professional authorship is to write true to the life of the kind of people we are writing about. We do not make cowboys talk like professors of English but like cowboys.
“I believe that learning correct English is an important part of education, but don’t let it get you down that your teacher apparently disapproved of the cowboy lingo in my poem. I was raised on a ranch among men who talked that way, and I’m still not ashamed of their kind of talk.
“On the other hand, honest-to-god cowfolks are the people I most respect and admire, and I am proud to be able to talk their language, whether correct grammatically or not.
“A good, all-around education is mighty important, but so is knowing about horses and cattle outside of books. There is no finer or more useful life than ranching, and I wish you well in your ambition to follow that road.”
Omar Barker passed away in 1985 at his home in Las Vegas, but his poems have not been forgotten. As with the work of Badger Clark, Bruce Kiskaddon, Curley Fletcher or Henry Herbert Knibbs, a lot of contemporary cowboy poets are fond of reciting Barker’s poems not only because of their authenticity, but also their humor. Invariably, one or two of Omar’s verses are recited at each of the various cowboy poetry gatherings held around the West today.
In the same manner, his poems are still popular with cowboys on ranches throughout the West. As they have for years, cowpunchers can still be found reciting Barker favorites to friends in the bunkhouse or at the tail end of a cow drive.
Cowboy Lore from Omar Barker
(excerpts from poems)
on roping hard and fast —
For them ol’ tie-fast cowboys,
Here is a rule that fits:
Whatever you get your rope on,
It’s yours—or else you’re its!
—from “Rule of the Range”
on hats —
With cowboys—and women—it works out like that:
Their spirits pick up when they wear a new hat!
—from “Sombrero”
on shoeing horses —
Of all the ol’ back-achin’ jobs a cowpokes’s got to do,
There’s mighty few as tough as when he’s got a bronc to shoe…
Some ponies are such leaners, that I’ve heard ol’ cowboys say
That once they’ve had to shoe ’em, they can tell you what they weigh…
But if the horse gets wringy, and they bang a careless thumb,
There ain’t much doubt but what you’ll hear the cowpokes cussin’ some,
For tackin’ on the horseshoes, just to tell it fair and square
cain’t never be done proper if you ain’t learned how to swear!
—from “Tackin’ on the Shoes”
on boots —
The cowboy is as proud a cuss
As ever you will meet.
And specially fastidious
About his dainty feet.
He figgers that they wasn’t made
To walk upon a heap,
Like those of men that wield a spade
Or heard a bunch of sheep.
That’s maybe why the high-heeled boot
He wears at work or play
Sometimes will cost this proud galoot
Purt near a whole month’s pay.
He’ll short himself on trips to town
And pass up payday pleasure
to lay a wad of money down
For new boots made-to-measure.
—from “Boot Galoot”
on cow horses and breaking broncs —
There’s different ways for tamin’ broncs to be good saddle hosses,
And every colt has got to learn to savvy who the boss is;
But lots of cowhands tell me that the best hoss, in the end,
Is one some good horsebreaker always treated like a friend.
—from “Breakin’ the Broncs”
Of all God’s creatures I endorse
Most heartily the one called “horse.”
That on this creature man might sit
No doubt is why God made him split!
—from “Cowboy’s Opinion”
His pride in his rough callin’
Don’t require much caterwaulin’ –
He’s the most unbraggin’ cuss you’ll come across;
But you mighty sure can figger
That no brag is ever bigger
Than a cowboy’s when he’s braggin’s on his hoss!
—from “Buckaroo Braggin’”
When a bronco gives way to man-throwin’ itch,
In Texas they say that he lets in to “pitch,”
While up in Wyoming, as no doubt you’ve heard,
Them salty bronc peelers claim “buck” is the word.
Now this is a point you can argue, my friend,
Till the last rope is raveled plum out to the end;
But all hands agree that when broncos explode,
It ain’t what you call it that gits a man throwed!
—from “The Word Don’t Matter”
on neckrags –
It might be silk or it might be cotton –
The ol’ bandana won’t be forgotten.
Around his neck everywhere he went,
Twas a sure ‘nough cowboy implement…
It might be red or it might be blue,
And often some kind of a faded hue,
But a cowboy without it, out in the West,
Considered himself just about half-dressed!
—from “The Ol’ Bandana”
on saddling and saddles —
They asked me why a cowboy saddles up with quiet care.
It’s partly just a cowboy trait to treat his pony fair.
He may not ever pet him much, nor pamper him, nor sugar him.
But if a hoss is fit to ride, it don’t make sense to booger him.
—from “Saddlin’ Up”
There’s one thing I’ve noticed that galls his inside.
It’s a lotta stuff tied on the saddle he rides:
For the “hired man a-horseback,” from head down to feet,
Sure dotes on a riggin’ that’s trim and that’s neat.
—from “Cowboy Likin’s”
They asked me “What’s a saddle?” So I told ‘em it’s a kack,
A rig of wood and leather shaped to fit a horse’s back.
You set up in its middle with a leg hung down each side,
Some horse meat in between ‘em, and that is known as ride.
— “Pants Polisher”
on punching cows —
Most cowpokes will tell you that here is a truth
You might as well learn in the days of your youth:
To be a cowpuncher you’ll never learn how
Unless you are purt near as smart as the cow!
—from “Texas Truth”
STEPHEN ZIMMER and his wife Shari have lived for more than 40 years on the Double Z Bar Ranch 25 miles from Cimarron, N.M. He has two degrees in history from the University of New Mexico and worked for 25 years as director of museums at the Philmont Boy Scout Ranch.
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