American cowboys have been writing poetry for over a century. This little-known literary tradition both belies the macho image of the Western heroes and serves as an imaginative form of oral history. Cowboy Poets travels to the big sky country of Nevada, Montana, and Arizona to explore the tradition and to introduce three working cowboys, and the poetry they write about the lifestyle and land they love: Waddie Mitchell, Slim Kite, and Wally McRae.

Born in the coalfields of eastern Kentucky, Gunning suffered a life of bitter poverty which became the fuel for dozens of moving songs about working people, the mines, and the great coal strikes of the twenties and thirties. In Mimi Pickering's 1988 film, Gunning's a cappella roots music is intercut throughout the interviews and archival footage

This captivating documentary takes on the commonly-held folk music scholarship assertion that women did not widely participate in old-time music in the Ozarks. Through a series of performances and interviews with senior generations of women musicians in southern Missouri, the film illustrates the central role women played, and continue to play, in the development of old-time music, culture, and community identity.