We’re heading back to Las Vegas this December for the National Finals Rodeo, and you’re invited to join us at the Ahern Hotel, Dec. 10–13, for National Cowboy Poetry Gathering on the Road!

“You can express, you can carve whatever you want,” says acclaimed saddlemaker Pedro Pedrini in his Q&A with the Western Folklife Center. Pedro came to Elko from France in the 1970s to study saddlemaking. Now, five decades later, Pedro has his own saddle shop in Spring Creek, Nevada, and works with his son Tony. Pedro and Tony will be co-teaching a leather carving workshop at the 41st Gathering.

“Sharing poems and songs about those aspects of our agrarian lives that were personal and deeply felt did a lot to humanize us,” writes Gail Steiger as he reflects on what cowboy poetry means and the connections it opens up.

This month, the cowboy poets discuss their pre-show rituals that help them reign in uncertainty and corral confidence as they answer the reader-submitted question, “Do you have any habits or superstitions that are part of your pre-performance routine?”

"For my humanity, I turn to cowboy poetry," writes poet Jonathan Odermann in this ode to listening, healing, and the connecting power of poems shared.