All This Way for the Short Ride: Roughstock Sonnets, 1971-1996: Poems [Paperback]

Paul Zarzyski (Author), Barbara Van Cleve (Author, Photographer), Teresa Jordan (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1996

The author includes over 30 poems culled from the last 25 years which truly showcase his life and soul, a soul that was kidnapped by rodeo and stolen by poetry. His poems and the accompanying photographs by Barbara Van Cleve capture the grit of the rodeo style.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A good bronc ride spans eight seconds, a length of time which never seems to end. Artists working with this space face a unique challenge: to not only understand it, but to understand everything it contains. In the gate, sitting on the animal, is a lifetime of practice, broken bones, ripped tendons, failures, triumphs, hopes and fears. Paul Zarzyski and Barbara Van Cleve have managed to capture this lifetime. Zarzyski, a former bronc rider,, is a poet recognized in cowboy circles as well as larger ones. His poems are a mix of the insouciant -- "How the Lord Throwed-in with Mom to Make Me Quit the Broncs" -- and the emotional -- "All This Way for the Short Ride," a moving tribute to his friend Joe Lear who was killed in the arena. He is adept at both the microcosm and the sweeping, the time in the arena as well as the time at home, building fence, drinking. Barbara Van Cleve's pictures are of the fixed and steadfast, those moments when every muscle in the arena -- the rider, animal, crowd -- is taut. Her shots outside the arena -- of preparation, the lone horse in pasture, portraits -- are reserved, almost meditative. A collaboration such as All This Way for the Short Ride can be choreographed only to a certain point. The intangibles fill the holes, in spaces we cannot see. It becomes indescribable. Zarzyski and Van Cleve, in this book, complete the process. They are artful with their cowboys, and cowboys with their art. -- Brian Baise, Big Sky Journal, Spring 1997

Rodeo life is the subject of All This Way for the Short Ride . . . a lively collection of poems by Paul Zarzyski, a former bareback rider, illustrated by Barbara Van Cleve, a photographer who was recently inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame. -- The New York Times Book Review, Megan Harlan

Rodeo life is the subject of All This Way For the Short Ride: Roughstock Sonnets, 1971-1996 . . . a lively collection of poems by Paul Zarzyski, a former bareback rider, illustrated by Barbara Van Cleve, a photographer who was recently inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame. Though both Mr. Zarzyski and Ms. Van Cleve are from Montana, their very different styles work to capture a chorus of contradictory moods: her luminous black-and-white images seem etched from some archetypal landscape, while his verses bristle with audacity and whimsy. Mr. Zarzyski alternates between bluster and lyricism. For the former, he uses lopingly metered stanzas and punch-drunk, self-mythologizing bravura, which heightens both the flair and the corniness of rodeo lingo. ("Running on Bute, LeDous songs and caffeine / You rollicking, rosined-up, spurring machine.") But he proves equally adept at meditative free verse, as in the title poem, in which he compares a cowboy killed by a throw from a bronc to "a bride's bouquet / pitched blind." Ms. Van Cleve's facing photo reveals the impossibly calm center within such a moment, as the leaping horse hovers delicately above the ground and the rider, despite his flailing body, leans back with a peaceful expression. Together, these artists offer a rare slice of what Mr. Zarzyski calls the "real West, the sunset into which -- / imagine why, if you will -- the cowboy rides off." -- Megan Harlan, The New York Times Book Review

From the Publisher

A true renaissance of cowboy arts is under way, fueled by the Cowboy Poetry Movement with it burgeoning audience and astonishing book sales. Spurring this popular movement on are poets such as Paul Zarzyski. Energetic, literary, wise, and witty, he applies contemporary poetry to cowboy themes of loss and loneliness, the freedom of the open range, and the thrill of the eight-second ride. All This Way for the Short Ride combines a dozen of the best poems from Zarzyski's popular book Roughstock Sonnets (Lowell Press, 1989), with twenty new poems and thirty-five photographs by celebrated photographer Barbara Van Cleve. Winner, 1996 Wrangler Western Heritage Awards

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Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Museum of New Mexico Press (November 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0890133085
• ISBN-13: 978-0890133088
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 7 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,112,371 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Zarzyski's poems are a journey through the cowboy soul., March 18, 1998

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[e-mail] (Greenwood, Indiana) - See all my reviews

This review is from: All This Way for the Short Ride: Roughstock Sonnets, 1971-1996: Poems (Paperback)

Zarzyski is the perfect guide to take us on a journey through the cowboy life - his heart and his soul. But these poems aren't just for cowfolk, horsefolk, and rodeo lovers. "All This Way..." contains some of the most poignant, soul-touching lyrics. The poems seem rough, but once the reader catches the rhythm, it's a beautiful ride! Van Cleve's photos, honest and real, set Zarzyski's works off perfectly. If you are a horse/cow person or just a lover of fine poetry, please experience "All This Way for the Short Ride"! You will be greatly rewarded.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 8-second poet . . ., March 8, 2005

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Ronald Scheer "rockysquirrel" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: All This Way for the Short Ride: Roughstock Sonnets, 1971-1996: Poems (Paperback)

This is an entertaining and moving collection of 32 poems by Montana poet Paul Zarzyski, who belongs to that rarified fraternity of rodeo cowboy poets. The intensity and focus required for riding roughstock are transferred into these highly charged poems, and most of them have the headlong intensity of a high-scoring 8-second ride.

Some of my favorite Zarzyski poems are included in this collection: "Buck," a Christmas-time lament for a dead horse; "To Wallace," a tribute to rancher-poet Wallace McRae; "Partner," about the fierce and loving bond between two rodeo friends, dedicated to Montana writer, Kim Zupan; "Monte Carlo Express - Box 258, 15.3 Miles Home," about reading mail while driving a speeding car; and the high-spirited "Escorting Granny to the Potluck Rocky Mountain Oyster Feed at Bowman's Corner." The best, of course, is the title poem, "All This Way for the Short Ride," about the death of another rider.

There's an appreciative foreword by Wyoming-born western writer, Teresa Jordan, and 27 wonderful black-and-white rodeo photographs by Montana photographer Barbara Van Cleve, taken between the years 1971-1996. An excellent addition to any bookshelf of Western literature.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars To find that part of each of us that wanted to be a cowboy, December 24, 2003

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Dr. John H. Plouffe (San Juan Capistrano, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: All This Way for the Short Ride: Roughstock Sonnets, 1971-1996: Poems (Paperback)

I took my wife on a whirlwind vacation of Montana in 1996. One of our stops was the annual Cowboy Poetry Reading in Lewistown. Paul was there to recite "Rosined-Up-'n'-Itchin'-to-Git" and "Monte Carlo Express-Box 258, 15.3 Miles Home." Afterwards I had the great pleasure of meeting him and shaking his hand. I was so impressed by his ability to describe his feelings for the West and for his own personal experiences that I wanted to read more, and was able to find copies of his Roughstock Sonnets and I Am Not A Cowboy. Everything about this man tells you what it's like to live life to the fullest, from the bare-back of a bucking horse. Thank God there are still cowboys among us.