As critics have been bemoaning the decline of poetry and literary writers have been defending their small yet loyal audience, another trend has taken root at ranches, rodeos and country-and-western bars across America: the rise of cowboy poetry.

I was able to explore this trend last year when I was asked to judge the National Cowboy Hall of Fame poetry competition out of Oklahoma City. (The biggest cowboy poetry event, The Gathering — a convention that began in 1985 in Elko, Nevada — now attracts more than 8,000 poetry lovers, which may make it the largest annual celebration of verse in the world.)

Generally, cowboy poets don’t approach the …