"The best cowboy poet who ever wrote a cowboy poem."
Frank M. King

During the 1920-1950 era, as a flood of cowboy fantasy swept over American popular culture, Bruce Kiskaddon (1878-1950) wrote poetry of authentic cowboy experience that was uniquely unromantic, and its unflinching realism and artistic strength still set it apart and keep it fresh and relevant for modern readers. The sustained achievement of his life's poetic work is now one of the key landmarks for the remarkable modern grass-roots revival and artistic expansion of cowboy poetry.

Despite Kiskaddon's seminal influence, his prolific output was widely scattered and is remarkably difficult to find. Never before has his poetry appeared in a collection nearly as complete as the 481 poems of Open Range.

Open Range is enlivened by 337 illustrations, most importantly 242 line drawings by Katherine Field (1908-1951), Kiskaddon's collaborater of twenty years in the creation of illustrated poems, now all rejoined in their proper pairings. Sixty-two of the Field drawings in the book are modern high resolution scans of original art work recently rediscovered in the Seaver Center for Western History Research in Los Angeles.

Twenty introductory pages present new details of Kiskaddon's life, straighten out his chronology,and correct a few commonly-held but erroneous notions about his history. In the search for biographical information the editor traveled to Los Angeles, Denver, and Trinidad, Colorado, co-opted the assistance of genealogical researchers, and interviewed Kiskaddon's granddaughter, Lynn Held, and Katherine Field's daughter, Dorothy Chapin.

Open Range was fours years in the preparation.

VIEW EXCERPT PAGES AND TABLE OF CONTENTS FROM THE BOOK

Book Features:

• Kiskaddon's entire poetic output -- 481 poems
• Extensively illustrated, including 323 line drawings by Katherine Field, Amber Dunkerley, and others
• Edited and with biographical and historical introductions by Bill Siems, editor of Bruce Kiskaddon, Shorty's Yarns (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2004)
• Prefaces by Hal Cannon, Waddie Mitchell, and Lynn Held
• Table of Contents, Bibliography of Kiskaddon's published work, Glossary, Variant wordings, Notes, Index of Titles
• Seven rare photographs of Kiskaddon and Field
• Book and cover design by Dawn Holladay

ALSO AVAILABLE! Click each to read more:
• A limited number of copies of the book, "Shorty's Yarns" by Bruce Kiskaddon, and edited by Bill Siems.
• The Educated Fellers CD: Songs of the Cowboys