NPR People
Baxter Black, NPR Biography
Commentator
Photo: Kevin Martin-Fuller
Baxter Black can shoe a horse, string a barbed wire fence and bang out a Bob Wills classic on his flat top guitar. A cowboy poet and former large animal veterinarian, Baxter was raised in New Mexico and spent most of his workin' life in the mountain west tormenting cows. Black now lives in Arizona and travels the country tormenting cowboys.
Since 1982, Baxter Black has been rhyming his way into the national spotlight. He's written many books, including his latest, Blazin' Bloats and Cows on FIRE!, recorded over a dozen audio and video tapes, and achieved notoriety as a syndicated columnist and radio commentator. From The Tonight Show and PBS, to NPR and the NFR, Baxter's wacky verse has been seen and heard by millions. His works are prominently displayed in both big city libraries and small town feed stores.
Yet Black, who still doesn't own a television or cellular phone, hasn't changed a thing about his subject matter or his delivery. He continues to focus on the day-to-day ups and downs of everyday people who live with livestock and work the land. Driven by a left-hand sense of humor, Black evokes laughter by just being there.
Baxter's philosophy is simple enough - in spite of all the computerized, digitized, high-tech innovations now available to mankind, there will always be a need for someone who can "think stuff up."
". . . probably the nation's most successful living poet." – New York Times
"Good, but indescribably weird." – Dallas Morning News
"It's just a tragedy Keats didn't live to hear this. . . " – Johnny Carson
