for Bonnie McCarroll

The crowd was not ready for her immodest pain.
Suffering should never be invited by pretty girls, in public.

In public, pretty girls should be predictable.
The girl was tenderly gathered up and hastily removed to hospital.

Calling her a girl is a lie — Bonnie was about to retire.
Black Cat was an honest bronc, he was just agitated that day.

Agitated, the gate jumped open and pretty Bonnie rode strong.
Black Cat turned a sudden somersault. We know the rest.

We know the rest: Death was too slow for comfort.
The crowd saw too much of trampled, pretty Bonnie.

Some believe Bonnie was a bronc in another life.
What a relief it would be for her prettiness to mean nothing.

Cowboys still believe that cowgirls are breakable.
The crowd was not ready for her immodest pain.

The Rodeo Tragedy was written for Bonnie McCarroll, a champion bronc rider whose fatal accident in 1929 led to women being banned from competing in bronc riding events across America. The poem borrows its first italic line (”The girl was tenderly gathered up and hastily removed to hospital”) from Cain Allen’s 2005 Oregon Historical Society entry on Bonnie McCarroll. The two other italic words were lifted from Juni Fisher’s 2011 article The Last Ride of Bonnie McCarroll where former rodeo clown, Monk Carden, who was near Bonnie as she mounted the bronc, Black Cat, recounts what happened between them.

Christina Thatcher grew up between a farm and a ranch house in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She won a Marshall Scholarship to undertake two MAs in the UK, after which she completed a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at Cardiff University, where she is now a lecturer. Her most recent poetry collection, Breaking a Mare, was published by Parthian Books in April 2025.