Special Gifts

Sharon Waller Knutson

 

 

 On cover, Sharon Waller Knutson, left, her mother and father and sister, Judy


By Sharon Waller Knutson

When I wrote my first short story in the third grade, my teacher told the class I was going to be a famous writer someday. From then on, I told everyone in the small town in Montana I was going to move to Hollywood or New York and be a famous writer and actress.  I was ridiculed by my peers in the forties and fifties when a woman’s role was to be a wife and mother.

When anyone said, “You can’t do that,” I said, “Watch me” and did it.  I wrote poetry, short stories and novels until I wrote my first article for the high school newspaper and was hooked and realized I was going to make a living writing newspaper stories.

I chased my dream across Montana, Idaho, Washington and California as I covered hard news right alongside the men in the 60s and 70s when women were relegated to the society pages. I made it to Hollywood where I interviewed movie stars as an entertainment reporter and editor.

In the md 1970s, I quit my newspaper job and traveled to the Instituto of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico to study creative writing for three years, I wrote novels and short stories in Toronto where I lived for a year and in Idaho while operating a bookstore. I didn’t start writing poetry again until 2005 and within six months, I published my first poetry book. Triggered by a memory or an incident in my life, poems write themselves in my head and I type them on the computer. When I get a theme for a book, I write up to six poems a day until I fill the book.

 I am proud to share poems from my 12th book, “My Grandfather is a Cowboy (Cyberwit 2024,)” a sequel to “The Leading Ladies of My Life (Cyberwit 2023)” Although all my books are memoires, these two books draw portraits of the people that most influenced my life.

I’ll let the praise from three storytellers and the poems tell the story about the men in my life past and present.

Sharon Waller Knutson’s “My Grandfather is a Cowboy” is a collection of poetry you read as though you were watching a film from the old West, but without Hollywood’s make believe. Knutson’s poems take us deep into the heart of cowboy country: Montana, Idaho and Arizona, with wonderful lines like: “My father blows into town / with the Montana wind.”  and “He wore a black ten-gallon hat / and snakeskin boots and Levi’s / so tight they painted his legs blue / I never saw a gun but in Texas / he said, he wore a Saturday / night special in a holster on his hip.”

Rose Mary Boehm, Sausade (Kelsay Books 2023)

Sharon Waller Knutson’s spare elegant and powerful storytelling is crafted with simplicity--common words, syntax, to create images that are complex, entertaining, and poignant, all at the same time. One example is the image of young love: “I imagine how my mother melts like the butter in the pan.” It’s hard to pick favorites but I go back to the title poem, “My Grandfather is a Cowboy,” “Toddler Houdini” and “Smoke and Mirrors” for the stories they tell and to savor the rhythm of the words and images.

Joan Leotta, Feathers on Stone (Main Street Rag 2022)

In “My Grandfather Is a Cowboy,” Sharon Waller Knutson lassoed me before I even got to the first poem. Still, I’d already met the strong resilient women of her family in “The Leading Ladies of My Life” and suspected the men had a hard act to follow. No need to worry though, as Knutson doesn’t believe in dull storytelling. Her twists and turns, especially her surprise endings, keep readers galloping along, eager to see over the next page.

Alarie Tennille, Three A.M. at the Museum (Kelsay Books 2021)


My Grandfather is a Cowboy

As a child, with soft fingers
I trace his hands, calloused
from roping cattle, his boots
and belt buckle, worn out
from breaking wild horses.
By the time I am born,
he has a bum leg and doesn’t
do much riding or roping.

He bans my sister, my cousins
and me from the ranch where he
feeds and waters the rodeo stock
fearing we’ll feed them apples
and the brahmas and broncs
won’t buck at the rodeo.

He also fears we’ll be bit
by a pit viper with a diamond
shaped head and be forced
to suck and spit out the venom
on our skin to save our young lives.

When I am sixteen and learning
to drive, Uncle Jack takes
me out to the ranch and I never go back.
I’ll never forget the outhouse.
I couldn’t get the stink of urine
and feces out of my nostrils
or the sight out of my head
of the naked people
in the dirty magazines.

Your grandfather is tough
as leather, my mother says.
When she was a child,
he quit whiskey cold turkey,
by gathering his children
around. They hugged him as he
shook and sweat. Never drank
another drop since, she swears.

I silently wish he’d teach
that trick to my cowboy father
who hides beer and whiskey bottles
all over the house and yard
and staggers to climb in the saddle
to pick up bucked off cowboys
at my grandfather’s rodeo grounds.


The Cowboy and the Lady

My father blows into town
with the Montana wind.
Hops off the freight train
hauling Idaho spuds,

swigs whiskey, tosses
the empty bottle,
follows the railroad
tracks to Will’s Café,

where he sees my mother
in a white waitress uniform,
bouffant red hair, hanging
a Help Wanted Sign.

She smells his breath when
he removes his cowboy hat
and introduces himself
as her new chef. She warns

my grandfather not to hire him.
He’s trouble. As his cook walks out
just as the customers walk in,
my grandfather hands my father

the chef’s whites and ushers him
to the kitchen and soon the café
is filled with the aroma of sizzling
bacon, burgers and onion rings.

I imagine how my mother melts
like the butter in the pan and the ice
cream in the cones when my father’s
hand brushes hers as he slides

the hot plates towards her, when he
opens the door, hands her the menu,
and she gets swept up in his laughter
and his eyes as dark and deep

as the muddy river as she falls
in love, not even noticing
the jagged rocks, rapids
and undertow pulling her under.


Smoke and Mirrors

When I see him standing
underneath the Conoco
lights, his long lanky legs
leaning against the brick building,
smoking a Camel, dark curls
cascading from his cowboy hat,

I am a filly flirting with a stallion
but when he grinds the butt
of his cigarette with the heel
of his leather boots, I am a calf
hopelessly roped and hogtied.
.
His lips taste like tobacco
and his shirt smells like smoke.
I am nineteen and he is twenty-
five and I liked riding the country
roads in his pickup truck
on the weekends, checking
the mirror on the visor
for lipstick on my teeth.

I don’t remember us ever
going to a movie or a restaurant.
Once he drives me to the college
dorm on a Sunday afternoon
and I go to introduce
him to my roommates and forget
his name. He never calls after that.

I still don’t remember his name
but my sister does. She googles
him and finds an eighty-six-year
old man with the same name
in the same small town
I left when I was still a filly
and he a strong stallion.


Counterfeit Cowboy

He wore a black ten-gallon hat
and snakeskin boots and Levi’s
so tight they painted his legs blue.

I never saw a gun but in Texas
he said, he wore a Saturday
night special in a holster on his hip.

All of my friends did, he said.
Murderers got six years
and victims got death.

He said he went to high school
in Lubbock with Waylon
Jennings and drove George

Jones home from the bars
when he was too drunk
to drive himself.  But he said

a lot of things like I do
and Till Death do us Part
with a mistress on the side

sexy as a sirloin sandwich
on rye with sweet pickles
mayo and mustard.

After his wedding to Wife No. 3
days before our divorce was final,
I figured everything was a lie,

until I found the photo album
with pictures of him drinking
whisky with Waylon and George.


Riding in the Posse

I remember the sun polishing
the brass as the band marched
up the street in the July 4th parade.

Our kids, Ben blowing the bassoon,
Mathew making the saxophone
sing and James pounding the drums.

Firecrackers popping and Rascal,
the Arabian my husband was riding
rearing and him tumbling

backwards, catching his boots
in the stirrups and hanging over
the saddle, until a posse member

grabs the reins and uprights him.
At his father’s funeral, we learn
years later that rider was decapitated,

orphaning eight kids, when he spurred
his sorrel who tossed him like a toy
and my husband wasn’t there to save him.

To buy the book:

Get an autographed copy by contacting Sharon at storytellerpoetryreview@gmail.com

Or https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61550834171025

Or buy at Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/8119654137/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2GDNWWLFL2MXX&keywords=My+Grandfather+is+a+cowboy&qid=1706110593&s=books&sprefix=my+grandfather+is+a+cowboy%2Cstripbooks%2C1687&sr=1-1

To read a review of “The Leading Ladies of My Life:”

https://stortellerpoetryreview.blogspot.com/2023/09/book-of-week_22.html