Shorty's Yarns: Western Stories and Poems of Bruce Kiskaddon [Paperback]

Bill Siems (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2004

Set in Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, the stories are a loosely tied string of old timer's yarns with a continuing cast of engaging characters, whom Kiskaddon avoids reducing to cowboy stereotypes. They include, as Siems describes them, "Kiskaddon himself as the character Shorty. As a common waddy with a small man's feistiness and a young man's mischief, Shorty encounters the wicked world with a succession of companions: Bill, high-headed and a bit of an outlaw; Rildy Briggs, untamable and unstoppable young cowgirl; and Ike, an old-fashioned dandy and 'a very fortunate person.' More or less in the background is the Boss-actually a series of Bosses-generally affectionately respected as long as he remains democratic in his dealings with the waddies. Buffoonery is provided by a succession of pompous characters, from townspeople who look down their noses on wild, unwashed waddies to professors from the East who have read books on how ranches should be run."

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Siems goes a long way to help us understand who Kiskaddon was in an excellent introduction to the collection." -- Hal Cannon, founding director, Western folklife Center and National Cowboy Poetry Gathering

"The best cowboy poet who ever wrote a cowboy poem." -- Frank M. King

"Thousands of Kiskaddon fans will be happy to have this invaluable collection available." -- David Stanley, coeditor of Cowboy Poets & Cowboy Poetry

About the Author

Bruce Kiskaddon (1878–1950) was born in Pennsylvania, but by his early teens had moved to Trinidad, Colorado. As a cowboy on a succession of southwestern ranches, he became especially adept at working with horses. Following a serious injury in 1906, his work began to include city employment, most often as a bellhop. Until 1924 he traveled and worked widely, both indoors and out, including two years as a drover in Australia before the war and two years in Europe with the United States Army as a mule skinner during World War I. He began to write poetry around 1915 and published his first collection of poems, Rhymes of the Ranges, when he moved permanently to the Los Angeles area in 1924. He worked at hotels and wrote for the rest of his life, producing over 450 poems and numerous prose pieces and publishing three more collections of his poetry.

Katherine Field (1908–1951) was born and lived most of her life on a New Mexico ranch. Crippled by childhood polio, she taught herself to draw with pen and ink. The bulk of her published work consists of over two hundred illustrations she created for poems written by Kiskaddon.

Bill Siems is a member of the chemistry faculty at Washington State University, a performer of old-time music, including cowboy songs, and a longtime admirer of Bruce Kiskaddon’s poetry. His historical introduction to Shorty’s Yarns benefits from interviews with members of the Kiskaddon and Field families and other new information.

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Utah State University Press; 1 edition (April 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0874215803
• ISBN-13: 978-0874215809
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,833,752 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cowboys are people, August 5, 2004

By 

Jarvis (Spokane) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shorty's Yarns: Western Stories and Poems of Bruce Kiskaddon (Paperback)

This book on Kiskaddon is more than a nostalgic collection of cowboy poetry. It offers several short stories that help us learn what life was like in the early twentieth century. The stories show cowboys poking fun at each other in an era before there was television and computers to amuse people. As you read the stories and poems you begin to formalize a picture of whom these people are. The stories give us a wonderful snapshot of a period of American life through the eyes of an editor who has caught the period in the works of Kiskaddon and his illustrator Fields.