Drifting Cowboy
Description
This collection of poetry tells the fascinating story of a boy who left his home in Quebec at fifteen with the dream of becoming a cowboy, took a train to Regina with just a few dollars in his pocket and started out as a flunky on a Saskatchewan ranch, spent some time in jail as a cattle thief, and served as a Hollywood stunt man, before eventually becoming one of the most famous cowboys in the world. It's also a tragedy, the story of a haunted man, deeply buried secrets, a broken marriage and a death due to alcoholism.
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Person
--ROBERT CURRIE is a poet and fiction writer who lives in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan where he taught for thirty years at Central Collegiate, receiving the Joseph Duffy Memorial Award for excellence in teaching language arts. His books have been finalists for the (now defunct) Commonwealth Poetry Prize, the Acorn-Plantos People's Poetry Award, the Poetry, Fiction, and Book of the Year Awards at the Saskatchewan Book Awards, and the High Plains Book Award for Poetry. A series of his poems (later published in Yarrow) won third prize in the 1980 CBC Literary Competition. A founding board member of Coteau Books and a former chairman of the Saskatchewan Writers' Guild, Currie once edited and published Salt, a little magazine of contemporary writing. Highlights of his career include receiving a Founder's Award from the Saskatchewan Writers' Guild, having a radio play win the 1977 Ohio State Award, teaching creative writing at the Saskatchewan School of the Arts in Fort San and the Sage Hill Writing Experience in Lumsden, delivering the Anne Szumigalski Memorial Lecture for the League of Canadian Poets, and serving two terms as Saskatchewan Poet Laureate. Currie is a recipient of the Saskatchewan Lieutenant Governor's Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts.