concepts · updated 2026-07-19
Peter Rabbit (Peter Douthit)
confidence: medium volatility: cold verified: 2026-07-19fresh
Commune name of Peter Douthit (1936-2012). Drop City member (1966-1968); co-founder of the Libre commune in Colorado; author of Drop City (Olympia Press, 1971); later co-founder of the Taos Poetry Circus.
Commune name of Peter Douthit (October 8, 1936 – October 27, 2012), a Drop City member, Libre commune co-founder, and later a fixture of the Taos, New Mexico poetry scene.
Before Drop City
Left home at 17 for New York City, cleaned dog pens at an animal shelter, played drums in jazz clubs, and met early Beat poets — one suggested he attend Black Mountain College, NC, where he worked the garden and greenhouse to audit classes taught by Charles Olson and Buckminster Fuller. He was connected to the Taos arts community from 1954, then worked with rock bands staging “happenings” in Texas in the early 1960s before moving to Colorado.
Drop City (1966–1968)
Joined Drop City in 1966. His “Dropper name” came from a visiting Denver Post reporter asking his name while he was out hunting rabbits for meat — “Peter Rabbit” stuck. He organized outreach: school and campus screenings of Drop City films and a spinning strobe-lit painting made by Clark Richert and others, and helped design the Day-Glo posters that a New York firm marketed globally.
He wrote Drop City (Olympia Press, 1971), a first-person, quasi-underground memoir mixing factual history, fiction, and prose poetry — called the most substantial book-length account of the commune. Its later chapters describe a commune in decline: “the Droppers were going on the same trip over and over again: coolin’ out runaways, speed freaks and smack heads.” Clark Richert has disputed the book’s accuracy as “greatly exaggerated.” Peter Rabbit’s writing brought Drop City significant outside attention — attention some accounts credit with also helping destabilize it.
Named once in the Drop City documentary (c. 2002) by Clark Richert, who describes him attending the Drop City wedding alongside Linda Fleming as one of the “Libre people” (01:01:33). The transcript sidecar tentatively identifies him as Speaker 10 (the most frequent unidentified speaker, 113 lines), but this remains unconfirmed.
Libre commune (1968–1979)
Left Drop City in 1968 and, with Dean Fleming, co-founded the Libre commune in Gardner, Colorado (Huerfano Valley) — still described as the oldest continuously operating hippie commune in the country. Lived there 1968–1979. His son John Lawton Douthit died in a car accident during this period; he met poet Anne MacNaughton at Libre and had a son, Michael Amergin Douthit, with her. In 1979 he was arrested for growing marijuana at Libre and served a year in prison.
Later life: Taos Poetry Circus
Returned to Taos in the 1980s. With Anne MacNaughton (whom he married), co-founded the Taos Poetry Circus (1982–2003), best known for its “World Heavyweight Championship Poetry Bout” — a mock-boxing poetry duel that drew Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, and other major poets. He played showman, earning the nickname “the Don King of Poetry” and a trademark red fez. Also a founding member of the jazz-poetry ensemble Luminous Animal and a co-founder of SOMOS, a Taos writers’ organization. His epic poem “Cabeza de Vaca,” about the conquistador, was published posthumously.
Death
Died October 27, 2012, of liver cancer, at his home in Taos, at 76. MacNaughton on his death: “Our brother Peter Rabbit took his last breath this morning at 9:57 a.m. I was holding his hand. He went very peacefully, just quit breathing.” His last wish, per MacNaughton: “Just say I was a good poet.”
Drop City (1971)
Peter Rabbit’s first-person account of the Drop City commune. Published by Olympia Press, 1971. Primary source for Drop City history not otherwise in the archive. Physical copy in possession (2026-05-21) — pending ingest.