Backdrop Addresses Cowboy

The backdrop functions as both motif and symbol in the poem. It is ubiquitous because the poem wants to draw attention to the context in which the cowboy operates. Often expansion, development, and conquest are presented as occurring in a vacuum. The landscape in which this development occurs is depicted as an empty or pretty space, existing only to frame the protagonists of the narrative. By speaking up, the backdrop shows that it is not merely space, it is the space that heroes like the cowboy “desecrate/ as you pass through” (Lines 36-37). The space is no passive sufferer, it is conscious and actively dislikes the cowboy’s intrusive presence, “the litter of your invasions” (Line 35). It asks the cowboy “Then what about me” (Line 25), questioning the cowboy’s self-righteous neglect of his landscape and context.

The space is the “horizon/ you ride towards,” (Lines 29-30) the “thing” (Line 30) the cowboy cannot lasso, the border he is always looking to cross. Through these lines, the backdrop satirizes the pioneering impulse to colonize every bit of land. This impulse is driven not by adventure or heroism but by greed and a sense of superiority. The so-called civilizers do not end up saving any people, species, or landscape but littering both the physical and emotional landscape around them. The backdrop’s assertion that its “brain” (Line 33) is “scattered with your/ tincans, bones, empty shells” (Lines 33-34) shows that colonialism has harmed more than the physical environment; it has impacted the cultural memory of the people it sought to colonize. Here, the poem alludes to the violent history of North America, where white settlers and colonizers took away the land of Native American tribes, imposed their own language and religion upon indigenous people, and ultimately harmed their population. Just as the cowboy doesn’t consider the perspective and needs of the backdrop, the settlers were singularly focused on their own goals at a cost to the land and people they colonized.