Directions: In this section, you will hear a passage three times. When the passage is read for the first time, you should listen carefully for its general idea. When the passage is read for the second time, you are required to fill in the blanks numbered from 36 to 43 with the exact words you have just heard. For blanks numbered from 44 to 46 you are required to fill in the missing information. For these blanks, you can either use the exact words you have just heard or write down the main points in your own words. Finally, when the passage is read for the third time, you should check what you have written.
One of those rare local creations of America, cowboy poetry has a long and vivid history, driven by its colorful practitioners and memorable poems.
Cowboy poetry is a form of poetry which grew out of a (36) of instant composition carried on by workers on cattle drives and ranches. After a day of work, cowboys would gather around a campfire and (37) one another with tall tales and folk songs. (38) was common, so poetic forms were employed to help memory.
Cowboy poetry is (39) both in its culturally specific subject matter and its traditional use of rhyme and meter. While the range of (40) landscapes explored in cowboy poetry are the traditional province of poetry, from joy to (41) , from humor to spirituality, the particulars (42) from the American West: horses, cattle, fire, storms, mythic figures of cowboys and ranchers, and the splendid wilderness. In keeping with their subject matter, cowboy poets tend to write in a traditional, rhyming style. They (43) folk songs more than modem poetry.
(44) , though adherents would claim that authors should have some connection to the cowboy life such that they can write poetry with an "insider’s perspective".
(45) . Hollywood used to make dozens of films a year about square-jawed gunslingers (). It now produces almost none, and there is currently no new Western series to be found on television or basic cable. (46) .Although it is growing, their audience is smaller: unlike Western films, cowboy poetry is mostly produced by Westerners, for Westerners.