Shutdown? Who Cares! There’s Subsidized Cowboy Poetry To Be Heard

RCI: Come hell or partial government shutdown, the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering will get under way in Elko, Nevada, on Jan. 28, much as it has every year since 1985, with an independent-minded Western spirit embodied in verse, songs … and enduring federal subsidies.

Folks thought the cowboy-poetry fest was in a peck of trouble back in 2011 after Tea Party fervor swept Republicans to control of the House, and they sought to abolish its key benefactor back east, the National Endowment for the Arts. (That was a way of “reining in” the deficit, recalls one expert interviewed for this article, seemingly with tobacco chaw planted firmly in cheek.)

But Harry Reid, then Senate majority leader, headed them off at the pass. Long story short, the flinty Nevada Democrat took to the Senate floor to help save the festival in his home state from a “mean-spirited” GOP budget, inviting conservative ridicule and turning cowboy poetry into a lightning rod for conflicting views of the proper role of government.

This year the “gathering,” as it is known, shows that history not only repeats but rhymes too. With a host of frontier wordsmiths and musical acts including Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives, the six-day festival endures even amid the current Washington budget impasse; sponsored by the Western Folklife Center in Elko, it is expected to draw thousands of people. The event’s website displays its support from the NEA even as the agency’s online grant registry itself lately is as inaccessible as a furloughed D.C. bureaucrat. more here