PULLMAN, Wash. – It is a rare cowboy who earns the reputation as a nation’s most successful living poet, but that is what the New York Times says about Baxter Black.
Poet, ex-veterinarian, radio commentator and author of the most widely syndicated agricultural column in America, Black will be at Washington State University Oct. 26 and 27 to tell Saddlebag Stories at the Jones Theatre in Daggy Hall. Presented by WSU Performing Arts, performances begin at 7:30 p.m.
Black can shoe a horse, string a barbed-wire fence and bang out a Bob Wills classic on his flat top guitar, but he is truly in his element on stage expounding on the flaws and foibles of people who live with livestock.
Growing up in Las Cruces, N.M., Black trained as a large-animal veterinarian at New Mexico State University and Colorado State University, but he also began writing and speaking in the early 1980s.
Black left his veterinary career and has since published more than a dozen books of fiction, poetry and commentary. He is a regular commentator for National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, hosts a syndicated weekly radio program, “Baxter Black on Monday,” and writes a syndicated weekly newspaper column, “On the Edge of Common Sense.”
Black says he spent his working life in the West tormenting cows and now he travels the country tormenting cowboys. He resides in Benson, Ariz.
Reserved seating for “Saddlebag Stories: An Evening with Baxter Black” costs $26 adult, $21 seniors, $13 students/youth and $10 WSU students. Tickets are available at TicketsWest outlets, including 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday-Friday at Beasley Coliseum, online at http://www.ticketswest.com and by phone at 800-325-7328. They can be bought at the Daggy ticket office starting two hours before each performance.
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