Horsegirl Poet ASPEN BLACK will be at Edible Vibe Saturday October 3rd from 1 to 3pm here in Rocky Mount.
From The Claiborne House Bed and Breakfast - Edible Vibe is at the end of our street! You can walk to this venue for some fantastic food (As the owner is a gourmet caterer) and drinks and be entertained.
Songs and Poems about Horse, Cowboys, and Rural Life. Cd Release party and Signing.
About Aspen Black:
Aspen Black is a rodeo cowgirl, horse trainer, two-time NBHA World Championship Qualifier, NBHA Super Series Champion, certified horseshoer, Western singer/songwriter, and cowgirl poet. She is also a wife, and mother to a 9 month old "future cowboy."
Her current music CD A Hundred Years Too Late recently received a favorable review by OJ Sikes in The Western Way, and has gotten good feedback and airplay from many Western radio DJ's across the US. Her songs have also received positive comments from R.W. Hampton, Jim Jones, Ian Tyson, and Kip Calahan (who is considering recording four of Aspen's songs on her upcoming projects).
She has a cowgirl poem published by Read The West magazine, and has also been featured on two television specials and in the newspaper.
Aspen's purpose in writing songs and poetry is not only to entertain, but to spread interest in the western arts as well as convey the message to preserve the heritage and lands of the old west.
What makes female cowboy poetry different? Nothing really, most female poets would say. But we can assume that the experiences of women and the way they tell their own stories is, in fact, inherently different, and that will somehow manifest itself in this traditionally male genre. Buckshot Dot maintains that she often writes poems from the male point-of-view, but her poem "Old Hank Morgan's Place" allows for a few more "feminine" lines:
Then he'd swing down from the saddle,
and he'd take me in his arms,
I could smell the scent of buckskin,
see the first bright evening stars.
Then we'd talk and plan and ponder
about things that never came:
How we'd buy a ranch together,
for I would have his name.
Rhyming verse has always been a requisite of cowboy poetry, and the die-hard traditionalists would insist that anything else is just storytelling. Yet "free" verse has made its way into contemporary recitals and many credit the female cowboy poets with this change. Les Siemens, Board Member and Media Advisor to the Cochise Cowboy Poetry & Music Gathering, breaks from the rhyming tradition with an original haiku that was used to promote this year's event:
Grass dry, no water;
Cows broke through the barb-wire fence.
Love that cowboy life!
Here at The Claiborne House B&B we have a framed print as you go up the stairs from the foyer from Australian Bush Poet and famous historical character Harry "Breaker" Morant. (1865-1902) that I made up for my parents on their anniversary. I do not know if any guest has ever stopped to read this poem on our stairway - maybe you can be the first!
Love Outlasteth All
Could I borrow the laverock's lifting note,
Or the silvery song from the blackbird's throat,
Then would I warble the whole day long,
Telling, in floods of passionate song,
How worlds might tremble, or skies might fall.
But Love, true Love, outlasteth all.
Or, with picturesque words, in phrases neat,
With ringing rhymes, and in sonnets sweet,
Had I the skill of the schoolman's craft
My song the murmurous breeze should waft,
And tell to her whom my heart loves best,
How Love outlasteth all the rest.
VIRGINIA IS FOR COWGIRL POET LOVERS
Life is too short for bad coffee... Shellie @ The Claiborne House Bed and Breakfast in Rocky Mount Virginia http://www.claibornehouse.net
