FEATURING: Natalie G'Schwind, Dakota Holdaway, Annie Mackenzie, Dakota Robinson.

From the 41st National Cowboy Poetry Gathering.

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Three former and one current scholarship recipient prove that the young’uns can write poetry! Poets Natalie G’Schwind, Dakota Holdaway, Annie Mackenzie, and Dakota Robinson share their time, trials, tribulations, and experiences of the lifestyle and living on the land, with perspectives from Nebraska, Utah, Oregon, and Texas

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PLAYLIST

"Those Who Poetry Belongs To" - Natalie G'Schwind
"Cowboy Vernacular" - Dakota Robinson
"Super Puncher" - Annie Mackenzie
"The Cowboy" - Dakota Holdaway
"22 Head" - Natalie G'Schwind
"The Battle of West Camp" - Dakota Robinson
"Dog Tired".- Annie Mackenzie
"All That You're Worth" - Dakota Holdaway
"The Ways of Bays" - Natalie G'Schwind
"Old Yeller" - Dakota Robinson
"The Blind Calf" - Annie Mackenzie
"My Dad's Worst Wreck" - Dakota Holdaway (poem by Sandy and Dakota Holdaway)
"June" - Natalie G'Schwind
"Cowboy Count Your Blessings" - Dakota Robinson (poem by Larry McWhorter)
"No One Helps Matt Like Trapper" - Annie Mackenzie
"Equus Caballus" - Dakota Holdaway (poem by Joel Nelson

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Natalie G’Schwind
Callaway, NE
Natalie G’Schwind grew up in the canyons around Callaway, Nebraska. She makes her living managing Nebraska’s Sandhills grasslands and helps out at the family ranch every chance she gets. She enjoyed writing from a young age, but didn’t get into poetry until college. Natalie has now published two books, Bays and Prairies and The Ways of Bays. And she had the honor to contribute poems to Sally Harper Bates’s Facing West: Voices of Western Women and Betty Lynne McCarthy’s REAL, which won a Will Rogers Medallion award.

Dakota Holdaway
Nephi, UT
Storyteller and poet Dakota Holdaway began his introduction to the cowboy lifestyle on the back of a horse (or mule) with his father and friends in the mountains and deserts surrounding his home. He learned many of life’s lessons and values navigating diverse terrain, hunting, packing, breaking horses and mules, and herding livestock. At 24, he founded the Juab Cowboy Poetry Gathering while working, writing, reciting, starting horses, and coaching 4-H with his wife. Dakota draws on the rich legacy of cowboy poetry and storytelling to share and create community with all who might enjoy or relate to his experiences.

Annie Mackenzie
Jordan Valley, OR
Annie Mackenzie is a fourth-generation rancher and part-time cowboy poet. She was born and raised in Jordan Valley, Oregon, and grew up on her family’s ranch just north of the small town. Annie has always had a love of the written word and the western way of life. She’s combined the two into the cowboy poetry that she shares. Whether it’s moving cows, fixing fence, working dogs, or watching a cowboying disaster unfold, there’s a lot that happens on the ranch to inspire her poetry.

Dakota Robinson
Round Top, TX
Working on ranches from Texas to Kansas, Wyoming to New Mexico, and back again, Dakota Robinson has experienced firsthand the many challenges and rewards the lifestyle of a cowboy can bring. Inspired by the likes of Baxter Black, Waddie Mitchell, Red Steagall, and Ian Tyson, he soon started filling his solitary hours in the saddle with an internal narrative of prose and rhyme—the cattle, horses, and his wife were among the first victims of his early experimentation. Now a full-time farrier back in Texas, Dakota spends his days shoeing horses to support his poetry habit. Dakota is the recipient of this year’s Buck Ramsey scholarship.

Filmed in front of a live audience with help from the E. L. Wiegand Foundation at the Western Folklife Center’s G Three Bar Theater in Elko, NV, on Jan. 30, 2026.

Made possible by the multitude of staff, artists, volunteers, and community members working behind the scenes to make this show happen.

Brought to you by the Western Folklife Center, using story and cultural expression to connect the American West to the world.
www.westernfolklife.org

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