Arizona Poets and Poetry

Arizona is a land poetic. Many writers have told the world about Arizona as a cattle producing state; as a wealthy mineral resource state; as a resort mecca; as a scientist's paradise; as a land of great forests and vast desert, deep canyons and high mountains, productive valleys and wide spreading plains. Novel after novel has portrayed the great struggle, triumph and romance of early Arizona. Hundreds of tomes in the finest libraries describe the natural wonders of the state. All of these, even if we add the many and great paintings, etchings and pictorials leave incomplete and unsatisfying the great panoramic-word and picture-portrayal of Arizona. It is all an extravaganza in setting and background of a mammoth stage awaiting the appearance of a lyric Jenny Lind, to give it purpose, pulsing beauty and harmony. The singer of songs enucleates that which the narrator and recorder may conceive but do not impart. The poets and composers give the songs of the land. They give in word and note what the body feels, the mind reflects, and the soul nurtures the subjective human translation of felt knowledge. The Arizona of the heart lives and breathes in the strophes of the poetic.

Some months ago I had reason to make an extensive search in the field of Arizona poetry because, like so many others, I was attempting to find a means, and possibly a unique one, of expressing my thoughts about the personal meaning of Arizona. I was astounded at the amount, variety, character and quality of the verse. This writer does not claim any great ability as a critic in the evaluation of classic poetry but like, I think it was, Will Rogers, "I know what I like" and I find much in Arizona inspired poetry that I like.

Some of the volumes of verse that have been most to my liking are "Quivira" by Harrison Conrard; "Sun and Saddle Leather" by Badger Clark; "Cactus and Pine" by Sharlot M. Hall; "Vanity Bag" by Margaret Wheeler Ross; and "Canyon Shadows" and "Sonnets to the Southwest" by Lou Ella Archer. Other volumes and writers will possibly make greater appeal to some of my readers. Each of the above poets has sung melodiously of Arizona. Harrison Conrard and Sharlot M. Hall have left a great gift to their land beloved, and others will sing their praise in the days yet unborn. Much as I might desire to do so, I must pass on from these and other of our poets whose verses have grown into volumes, hoping to tell more of them another time, and turn to the scrap book.

This scrap book is composed of the life stories and poems of a few of the lesser known of the Arizona poets. In some instances even their friends may be surprised to learn of the gleanings gathered from dusty cupboard shelves. In other instances poems have appeared in collections and anthologies but are not sufficiently known to the reading public. To me they have contributed in expressing my own inexpressible feelings and thoughts of Arizona the land poetic.

Gail Gardner is Arizona born and reared. His father was a pioneer merchant in Prescott owning a general store stocked to meet all the needs of the growing cattle country it was literally true "you could buy anything from a needle to a threshing machine" from J. I. Gardner. Gail came as a Christmas present to his parents-being born December 25, 1892. He attended school in the city of his birth, spending considerable time around the store and on the ranch. He grew up a cowboy, a vocation that attendance at Phillips Exeter Academy and Dartmouth College from which he was graduated in 1914, never altered.

born December 25, 1892. He attended school in the city of his birth, spending considerable time around the store and on the ranch. He grew up a cowboy, a vocation that attendance at Phillips Exeter Academy and Dartmouth College from which he was graduated in 1914, never altered.

During World War I, Gail Gardner was a pilot in the Army Air Corps but he remarks, "I never got out of Texas." After the war he returned to Prescott and returned to ranch life, and out of his experience he has written many well known cowboy ballads some of them so good that they were lured from their home range and the brands changed by some fellow with an author's running iron.

Gail was one of the founders of the Smoki (Smoke-eye) people of Prescott, now world famous for their annual ceremonial of Indian dances and rites. He is now postmaster of Prescott.

In 1935 he published a collection of his songs under the title "Orejana Bull" and subtitled "For Cowboys Only". Orejana is pronounced oh-re-han-nah and is defined as "an unbranded animal old enough to quit its mother; also called a maverick." Gardner had a good reason for his title, because the implications are clear, many of his songs had been sung by cowboys around the campfire and in the bunk houses and had finally appeared over radio and on stage as the original work of others. So he decided to brand or copyright his literary orejanas.In the foreword of "Orejana Bull", Gardner says: "These songs were written for the sole purpose of amusing cowboys. They will have no special appeal for the big outfits of the plains country where the cattle may be systematically rounded up twice a year and handled in an orderly fashion. But the small owner, the 'greasy sack' outfit, and the cowboy who works wild cattle in the brush and mountains where they have to be 'outlawed', should find some entertainment in them. Some of these songs were written many years ago and have since been sung around the cow-camps and rodeos all over the west. They are gathered here and set down accurately as they were written; for a song passed by word of mouth from 'one old boy to another old boy' is apt to undergo a fearful and wonderful change."

"The first song was written as a verse, and it never would have been sung at all if Bill Simon hadn't sized it up one day and decided it would do to sing. He started it and, as it went pretty good, that started me to writing more 'cow' songs. The author is no musician, in fact, he doesn't know one note from another, but he has had a great deal of pleasure setting these songs to simple tunes and singing them to patient friends. They must be friends indeed for their many requests for the words of various songs are responsible for the publication of this little book."

My own introduction to Gail Gardner was at the State Cattle Growers' convention in 1934. It was announced that he would sing some of his own cowboy songs there was applause not the polite kind sometimes tendered as a gesture, but the sincere almost rowdy sort that bespoke a real welcome and the pleasure of the assemblage. Well do I remember-