Paul Zarzyski

A featured performer at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada since 1987, Paul has garnered the Wrangler Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum for “All This Way for the Short Ride” (Museum of New Mexico Press, 1996), and Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America for “Wolf Tracks on the Welcome Mat” (Oreana Books, 2003); for best poem in 2010, “Bob Dylan’s Bronc Song”; and best song in 2010, co-written with Wylie Gustafson, “Hang and Rattle”. Of eleven collections of poetry, the four remaining in print in addition to those above are “Blue Collar Light” (Red Wing Press, 1998), and his most recent “51: 30 Poems, 20 Songs, 1 Self-Interview” (Bangtail Press, 2011). Dry Crik Press published “I Am Not A Cowboy” in 1995. Paul also has four spoken word CDs to his credit, “Words Growing Wild” and “The Glorious Commotion of It All” produced by Jim Rooney in Nashville; ”Rock and Rowel” and “Collisions of Reckless Love” from Open Path Music in San Jose, California with Gordon Stevens. Paul is an ex-bareback rider and and received his MFA from the Univeristy of Montana where he studied with the esteemed American poet Richard Hugo.

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