Bruce Kiskaddon

Who was Bruce Kiskaddon?

Bruce Kiskaddon has been called the quintessential cowboy poet of the 20th century and is widely considered to be the cowboy poet laureate of America. His poems were widely published in calendars and books throughout his lifetime. In the mid-1980s, the birth of the cowboy poetry renaissance renewed interest in his work.

Bruce Harvey Kiskaddon was born in 1878 in Pennsylvania. He started his cowboy life in 1898 working in the Picket Wire district of Colorado. Kiskaddon worked for ten years as a cowboy. He frequently amused his fellow cowboys by writing parodies of songs and putting into rhyme the happenings around the ranch and on the trail.

At the outbreak of World War I, Kiskaddon joined the Army and served honorably in France with the cavalry. He remained overseas, spending time in the ranches of Australia as a jackaroo. When he returned to the United States, he found employment with Tap Duncan, a well-known and successful cattle rancher.

Kiskaddon entertained his fellow cowboys with his creative rewriting of popular songs. In 1922, with the encouragement of his employer, he wrote western poems about what life was really like in the west. With Duncan's encouragement, Kiskaddon began writing poetry that was both popular with cowboys and the general reading public. In 1924, he published his first book of poetry.