Clark Crouch

Clark Crouch, an American poet and a self-proclaimed Poet Lariat, is a prize-winning western and cowboy poet, author, lyricist, and performing artist. His viewpoints and biases were shaped by his youthful experience as a cowboy and growing up during the Great Depression and years of drought in the Sandhills of Nebraska. The author of ten books of poetry, seven of which are devoted to traditional western and cowboy verse, he is a two-time winner of the prestigious Will Rogers Medallion Award for...See more

Clark Crouch, an American poet and a self-proclaimed Poet Lariat, is a prize-winning western and cowboy poet, author, lyricist, and performing artist. His viewpoints and biases were shaped by his youthful experience as a cowboy and growing up during the Great Depression and years of drought in the Sandhills of Nebraska. The author of ten books of poetry, seven of which are devoted to traditional western and cowboy verse, he is a two-time winner of the prestigious Will Rogers Medallion Award for Cowboy Poetry and a five-time finalist in the annual Western Music Association's book award competitions. His interest in poetry began in the early 1940s with the encouragement of Charles Badger Clark, the classic cowboy poet who was then Poet Laureate of South Dakota, and shortly thereafter wrote his first prize-winning poem, "Cowboys." When he was 73, after a 60 year hiatus, he started writing poetry and performing professionally throughout the Northwestern United States, including Wyoming. He was inspired by three individuals: Will Rogers who was his hero during the early 1930s; Badger Clark, his 1940s acquaintance (cited above); and Sherman Alexie, a Native American poet, novelist, screen-writer and performer who, in 2001, encouraged him to return to writing poetry. See less