Origin of a Poet Lariat

The original poet lariat comes from the book, Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain. The name was later assumed by Will Rogers during his rope-spinning days. It was a grand heritage adopted by Badger Clark to promote the West through cowboy poetry. Since then, a score or more of today’s poets have also adopted the title. Some are even cheating a bit by producing free form western poetry with no rhyme or rhthm in place of in traditional poetic forms as actually used by cowboys as they rode the range in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Some today even adopt the title as they write and publish nonwestern verses! 

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