A Visit with Jane Ambrose Morton

Jane Morton was named top female poet of 2007 by the Academy of Western Artists (AWA). Her book of cowboy poetry, Turning to Face the Wind, received the Will Rogers Medallion Award.

Jane, what was life like growing up on the eastern Colorado plains during the drought and Great Depression?

My father taught school and helped his father with the family farm near Fort Morgan. This farm had been in the family since 1911 when my great-grandfather bought the original 320 acres.  They owed the bank, and there was little money coming in, so the whole family had to pitch in and help if we were to keep our land.

During the '40s the debt was paid off, and the family went into the cattle business. 

As the financial situation improved we bought more land.  By the late sixties we had acquired 14,000 acres, the herd had grown to 800 head of Herefords, and the "farm" had become a ranch.

When I married, my husband and I, besides being educators were involved in the ranch and ranch activities including branding, round-ups, and cattle sales.  Dad had one man on the payroll and farmed out some of the big jobs, such as cutting corn for silage.  Otherwise the family did it all.

After attending my first cowboy poetry gathering  in Colorado Springs, I began to write and recite poems about our family and the ranch. Now retired, my husband and I live near Colorado Springs on the edge of the Black Forest part of the year and in Mesa, Arizona the other part.  We participate in cowboy poetry gatherings throughout the western United States.

Why did you decide to write cowboy poetry?

Because I have to. Writing is as necessary for me as breathing. Stories inside of me are clamoring to be told, and cowboy poetry seems the perfect medium for my telling. During the depression when my father taught school, we moved from place to place in eastern Colorado. Sometimes we moved from one house to another in the same area.  Although I changed neighborhoods, schools, lost old friends and made new ones, things at the farm were always the same. The farm gave me a sense of place and a feeling of security and stability, because no matter where we were, "we" had a farm.  I want to convey those feelings through my poems.  Instead of writing a family history, I am writing cowboy poetry.  I think it is important for every family to tell their stories. Someone asked me how long it took me to write a poem.  I thought a minute, and then I knew.  All my life. Everything I have ever experienced has gone into my poems.  I love reciting at the gatherings, because these seem to be stories people want to hear.

 What inspired you to become a writer?

I had always wanted to become a writer, but I didn't know what to write or how to start until I took a University of Colorado class about writing for children.  I wrote children's books for about 20 years and published ten children's books.  Then I went to my first cowboypoetry gathering in Colorado Springs.  I knew that besides having a ranch background, I could write poems with rhyme and rhythm, so that's what I began to do. I sent out poems and bios and began reciting at cowboy gatherings all over the West.

Who, in your opinion, is the best cowboy poet?

I think Joel Nelson is the best cowboy poet writing today.

Advice to fledgling cowboy poets?

Go to the cowboy gatherings.  Read books, beginning with classic cowboy poets writing from the late 1800s into the early 1900s.

We'd love a sample of your work.

Way of Life

Like snowflakes in blizzards
    change comes thick and fast,
obliterates landmarks
    which link ranching's past.

We need tell our stories,
    share memories amassed,
to help those who follow
    ride out the storm's blast.

Thanks, Jane.

Jane Morton doesn't have a website but you can visit her at Cowboy Poetry.com