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Ted Lyster grew up on a ranch near Canby, Oregon and moved to Bend in 1965 after earning a business degree from the University of Portland. He noted, “Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would become a poet!” Lyster always had horses and a love for the outdoors. He started writing poetry in 1990 after attending the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada. In 1996, Lyster was one of the founders of the High Desert Western Arts Association. He has recited his poems on ships in the Caribbean, the Yangtze River, and the South Pacific, and at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City.
Don Crowell, also a Central Oregonian,recited from memory some of his favorite cowboy poetry, which is a tradition of this genre.
COCC Scholar-In-Residence, award-winning author and poet Ellen Waterston, stated: “Cowboy poetry dates back to the era of long-distance cattle drives from Texas to Kansas that followed the Civil War, and it has a tradition that lives on in the American West.” She added, “The genre has been influenced by an array of literature, including the Bible, Shakespeare's plays, and the works of the Beat Generation, as well as by popular writers such as Robert W. Service and Rudyard Kipling. Victorian popular culture’s emphasis on schoolhouse and parlor recitations is also evident.” Waterston noted that cowboy poetry also reflects the culture of the American West, as represented in Hollywood cowboy films, country-western music and the region’s political and social climate, focusing on issues such as the impacts of homesteading and barbed wire in the 19th century.
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Ted Lyster
Don Crowell
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