Kathy Moss (Prairie City) is a cowboy poet, buckaroo, horse trainer, and rancher who writes poetry and fiction about the working buckaroo life. Her writing, which includes published essays and books as well as CDs, is based on her own experiences working with horses, cattle, and people across Oregon. She has dedicated her life to understanding horse communication.
Bio
Kathy Moss (Prairie City) is a cowboy poet, buckaroo, horse trainer, and rancher who writes poetry and fiction about the working buckaroo life. Her writing, which includes published essays and books as well as CDs, is based on her own experiences working with horses, cattle, and people across Oregon. She has dedicated her life to understanding horse communication. Moss, who grew up in a ranching family in Baker County, Oregon, learned to ride early and learned to work cattle from her stepfather and by doing the work. She has Her pop's philosophy was, "You can read a thousand books. But until you actually get into it, you start doing it, . . . it doesn't matter how good you are. There's always going to be something that isn't done right. . . . When you make a mistake, that puts you longer in that saddle, you’re not going to make it again." Moss did not start out as a poet. She struggled with writing through high school and found out later that she was dyslexic. She recalls, “But when I saw my dad's health start to fade, I started writing some of his stories down because I was afraid we're going to lose them. And every time I started to write, it came out in a cowboy poetry form.” This wasn’t on purpose—it was just how she wrote. And the more she wrote the more people wanted to hear, so she wrote more. Moss’s formal introduction to the world of cowboy poetry came about after she’d put together that first book of poems, which Michelle Severe illustrated. The two ended up at an art show in Redmond, OR with well-known cowboy poets Baxter Black and Waddie Mitchell. Severe told Baxter Black about Moss’s poetry, and Black stopped by her booth and asked her to read a poem. She recited one, and he demanded to know, "why are you not on stage?" Moss recalls that she blurted out that she “could never do that.” Black’s response: "too bad." This, according to Moss, this was the turning point. Black’s comments gave her the impetus to push herself forward, as did the sale of 100 of her books in less than a week. A year later, in 1998, she opened for Baxter Black at a show in Burns, OR. Moss and her husband have their own ranch and they continue to run cattle for others; they also own Russell’s Custom Meats in Canyon City. Moss speaks from own knowledge and experience about riding horses, running cattle, doctoring cattle, and ranching. Mentored by Baxter Black and Waddie Mitchell, she is an experienced and lauded cowboy poet and has performed throughout the west including at the Grant County Fair and the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, NV. Her 2019 album won the Western Music Association’s 2019 Cowboy Poetry CD of the Year Award for her CD, "The Truth." Her CDs and books are available for sale on her own website, her blog, and on Amazon.
