Nathan Howard Thorp

Nathan Howard Thorp Poems

Nathan Howard Thorp Biography

N. Howard "Jack" Thorp (June 10, 1867 – June 4, 1940) was an American collector and writer of cowboy songs and cowboy poetry. Starting in 1889, he collected cowboy material while living in New Mexico. His small book Songs of the Cowboys was published there in 1908. It was the first such book ever published, containing the words to only 23 songs, including the now-classic "The Streets of Laredo" and "Little Joe the Wrangler". A greatly expanded second edition was published in 1921. Today, Thorp is credited with being the first person to take a serious interest in collecting and preserving the homespun ballads of the American West. Early life Nathan Howard Thorp was the youngest of three sons of a New York City lawyer and real estate investor. As a child he summered at his brother's ranch in Nebraska, and at nineteen he moved there. Later he moved to to New Mexico, where he worked as a cowboy and a civil engineer, operated cattle and sheep ranches, and served as New Mexico's state cattle inspector. He married in 1903, living in Palma (100 miles east of Albuquerque) and Santa Fe before moving closer to Albuquerque in 1935. Career Jack Thorp began collecting and writing cowboy songs in 1889; his Songs of the Cowboys was published in Estancia, New Mexico in 1908. An expanded version was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1921. His later publications included Tales of the Chuck Wagon (1926) and Pardner of the Wind: Story of the Southwestern Cowboy (published posthumously in 1941 with Neil M. Clark). His fiction and poetry also appeared in New Mexico Magazine, The Cattleman, The Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, and The Literary Digest. Cowland, a book-length story targeted towards a younger audience, remains unpublished. From 1936-1939 Thorp worked for the Works Progress Administration’s New Mexico Federal Writers’ Project. Nathan Howard Thorp died at his home in Alameda, New Mexico, on June 4, 1940. A new edition of Songs of the Cowboys, including biographical material and a CD with many of its songs played on historical instruments, was published in 2005 by the University of New Mexico Press.)

The Best Poem Of Nathan Howard Thorp

Little Joe, the Wrangler

Little Joe, the wrangler, will never wrangle more;
His days with the 'remuda'—they are done.
'T was a year ago last April he joined the outfit here,
A little 'Texas stray' and all alone.

'T was long late in the evening he rode up to the herd
On a little old brown pony he called Chow;
With his brogan shoes and overalls a harder-looking kid
You never in your life had seen before.

His saddle 't was a southern kack built many years ago,
An O.K. spur on one foot idly hung,
While his 'hot roll' in a cotton sack was loosely tied behind
And a canteen from the saddle horn he'd slung.

He said he'd had to leave his home, his daddy'd married twice
And his new ma beat him every day or two;
So he saddled up old Chow one night and 'lit a shuck' this way—
Thought he'd try and paddle now his own canoe.

Said he'd try and do the best he could if we'd only give him work,
Though he did n't know 'straight' up about a cow;
So the boss he cut him out a mount and kinder put him on,
For he sorter liked the little stray somehow.

Taught him how to herd the horses and to learn to know them all
To round 'em up by daylight; if he could
To follow the chuck-wagon and to always hitch the team
And help the 'cosinero' rustle wood.

We'd driven to Red River and the weather had been fine;
We were camped down on the south side in a bend,
When a norther commenced to blowing and we doubled up our guards,
For it took all hands to hold the cattle then.

Little Joe, the wrangler, was called out with the rest,
And scarcely had the kid got to the herd,
When the cattle they stampeded; like a hailstorm, long they flew,
And all of us were riding for the lead.

'Tween the streaks of lightning we could see a horse far out ahead—
'T was little Joe, the wrangler, in the lead;
He was riding 'Old Blue Rocket' with his slicker 'bove his head,
Trying to check the leaders in their speed.

At last we got them milling and kinder quieted down,
And the extra guard back to the camp did go;
But one of them was missin' and we all knew at a glance
'Twas our little Texas stray—poor wrangler Joe.

Next morning just at sunup we found where Rocket fell,
Down in a washout twenty feet below
Beneath his horse, mashed to a pulp, his spurs had rung the knell
For our little Texas stray—poor Wrangler Joe.

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