Scott Wiswell of Valley Center grew up riding horses and working cattle before pursuing a career as a Wichita Police detective and an investigator with the Sedgwick County district attorney.
In his spare time, Wiswell writes and performs cowboy poetry. A two-time winner of the Kansas Cowboy Poetry Contest, he also was named cowboy poetry champion at the Chisholm Trail Festival in Yukon, Oklahoma.
His poetry collection, “When the Stars Sang,” was nominated for Cowboy Poetry Book of the Year by the International Western Music Association. His newest collection is "Campfires & Cowpunchers: Creepy and Comical Cowboy Poems for the Campfire."
The interview was edited for length and clarity.
DAN DILLON: Tell us, for those who may not know, what is a cowboy poem?
WISWELL: It's a little hard to describe, in the sense that everyone has a different definition of what a cowboy is. You know, some people think of a cowboy as just somebody who works with cows and horses all day long, but (for) others, it's the Western lifestyle. And so cowboy poetry kind of reflects back to the past of the old cattle drives, but also reflects the values and thoughts of modern day ranching and agriculture.
DILLON: How did you get your start in cowboy poetry?
WISWELL: I read and listened to some famous cowboy poets, and then as you research, you kind of go back in time to the old classics of the early 20th century — Henry Herbert Knibbs and Bruce KisKaddon and S. Omar Barker, those old cowboy poets from the early 20th century. And it just kind of caught my eye.
DILLON: When I read a cowboy poem, it immediately takes me to maybe a campfire, to an old dusty trail ride or something like that. It really paints a picture. And is that what you try to do with your cowboy poetry??
WISWELL: I try not to tackle a big issue, you know, like writing about the West or the Rockies or Kansas as a whole, because a poem's like a short snippet of time, like a short story focusing on a detail, whether it's a sunrise or falling off your horse or wading through mud and manure, or whatever it is. You can maybe paint a picture, whether it's humorous or serious, like listening to a veteran tell a war story or a cop tell a cop story.
DILLON: What made you decide to get into cowboy poetry competitions?
WISWELL: It started just by looking into it and seeing that other people would do it, so I tried my hand at it. As you get around other poets, you see how good they are, and you learn it's a close-knit counterculture movement. So it's fun to just interact and listen to their poems and see if you can improve on your own.
DILLON: When you perform, you recite poems from memory. How do you do that?
WISWELL: It takes me a few months to get it down, and then you think you do (have it memorized). But when you're nervous or being interviewed or on stage, it's just going to blank from your mind, and that has happened.
