Baxter Black is a busy man. But if you know what makes him tick, it should come as no surprise that he found time to make a stop in Durango this weekend.
“You’re talking about saving ranches? That’s what I like,” Black said from his Arizona home while preparing for a trip that will take him through Colorado, Utah, Texas and Mississippi. He’ll perform his inimitable stage show of poetry and storytelling Saturday at the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College. The event is a fundraiser for La Plata Open Space Conservancy.
“Ask any farm kid how he feels about the subdivision crawling across the hill toward his folks’ farm – it’s like lava from a volcano,” Black said. “When that starts coming in, it means we gotta move.
“The most fertile ground anywhere is right in the middle of the biggest city – that’s where the Indians camped,” he said. “Then, pretty soon somebody came in with a bunch of cows, then they’d need a general store and so on. Every time that happens, they come to where the benefits are, and they expect agriculture to move out.”
Black is one of the most famous cowboy poets around. Many, especially in the Four Corners, were introduced to him by his radio commentaries on NPR or newspaper columns. He’s now heard Monday afternoons on KRSJ-FM in Durango. Saturday’s visit will be Baxter’s fifth Durango performance.
The Centennial State is familiar to Black, who lived for 17 years in Brighton before moving south to care for his mother.
“I was the first person to get a speeding ticket on Peña Boulevard,” he said, referring to the highway that takes travelers into Denver International Airport.
Black has always been a poet, but it never was intended to be his livelihood. He doesn’t just dress the part; Black was a large-animal veterinarian for years before he got his big break.
“Cowboy poetry hijacked my veterinary career,” he said.
In 1987, he sent a poem about a big wildfire in Yellowstone National Park on a reel-to-reel tape to NPR. The chances for a producer to even listen to an unsolicited submission, let alone air it, was as much of a long shot then as it would be today.
“I shot an arrow in the sky, and lo and behold, someone called me back,” Black said.
That launched a 20-plus-year career that made Black one of the most famous cowboys in the U.S. So famous that Random House came calling with an offer to publish his poetry, which would seem to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Not so for Black, however.
“My mind was thinking, ‘If I give it to them, it’s forever and I’d have to ask permission to use my own poetry,” he said.
Instead, Black did sign a deal with the publishing giant, but only for his fiction and nonfiction writings.
“Some people write to have, others write to be,” Black said. “All my poetry is literally me – that’s writing to be. Writing to have is when I make commercials and write novels.”
That doesn’t mean you can’t read Black’s poetry. He’s published several volumes of his poetry himself, including his latest, Poems Worth Saving. Like most of his writings, it’s a mixture of memories, real or otherwise.
“I’m incapable of writing anything straight or factual,” he said. “People say, ‘Is that really true?’ when I tell these stories. But to quote Mark Twain (sort of), I’m reaching the age where the things I remember most clearly might not have happened.”
Black is as genuine as his persona would suggest. He spins his yarns, maybe even stretching the truth at times, but there’s nothing phony about him, and it’s why he’ll leave another happy crowd in his wake this weekend.
“I’m a happy person, and I like to help people,” he said. “We do our part for those who need it. Twenty percent of the jobs I do are fundraisers, and every public speaker I know is in the same boat. You gotta give it back. It’s not how much you made, it’s did they get their money’s worth.”
ted@durangoherald.com
If you go
Baxter Black will perform a benefit show for La Plata Open Space Conservancy at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College. Tickets cost $20 for balcony, $30 for orchestra and plaza seating and $50 for VIP. The VIP tickets include a preshow reception from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Center for Southwest Studies and preferred/premium reserved seating. Tickets are available by phone at 247-7657 and online at www.durangoconcerts.com.
