Things a Cowboy Sees and Other Poems

This little book of poems has led a productive life since it was hatched in 2011. One of its poems, "Tabula Rasa," won the Western Writers of America Spur Award in 2012. "Things a Cowboy Sees and Other Poems" won the Fred Olds Poetry Award from Westerners International in 2011. The Academy of Western Artists christened it Best Poetry Book with the Buck Ramsey Award in 2013.

When the publisher, Chila Woychik, decided to shutter Port Yonder Press to pursue other dreams I was not willing to see the book go out of print. But I did not want to become a publisher myself, although that is an option chosen by more and more poets and writers nowadays. Not me.

So, what to do?

Pen-L Publishing to the rescue!

Duke and Kimberly Pennell agreed to include "Things a Cowboy Sees and Other Poems" in their growing catalog of good books. I got to know and like Duke and Kimberley when they published Goodnight Goes Riding and Other Poems. (That book, too, won the Westerners International Fred Olds Poetry Award in 2014, and one of its poems, "Song of the Stampede," was a Finalist for the Western Writers of America Spur Award in 2015.) I got to know them better and like them more as we put together a collection of my short fiction, "The Death of Delgado and Other Stories" (whose title story won a WWA Spur Award in 2012 and "A Border Dispute" was a Spur Award Finalist in 2006).

All thanks to Duke and Kimberly and Pen-L Publishing for keeping "Things a Cowboy Sees and Other Poems" alive. And hats off to all the readers, reciters, editors, and others who have helped keep my ongoing efforts to become a writer alive.

--Rod Miller, 2017
www.writerRodMiller.com