Peter Douthit (Peter Rabbit) — biography sources (fetched 2026-07-19)

Fetched: 2026-07-19 Reliability: mixed — Wikipedia cross-checked against two New Mexico newspaper obituaries and an alt-weekly retrospective; broadly consistent.

Identity and dates

Born Peter Douthit, October 8, 1936, in Bradford, PA; raised partly in Owensboro, KY. Died October 27, 2012 (age 76), of liver cancer, at his home in Taos, NM.

Pre-Drop City

At 17, moved to NYC, cleaned dog pens at a city animal shelter, played drums in jazz clubs, met early Beat poets — one suggested he attend Black Mountain College, NC, where he worked the garden/greenhouse to audit classes taught by Charles Olson and Buckminster Fuller. Involved with the Taos arts community from 1954; in the early 1960s worked with rock bands staging “happenings” in Texas before heading to Colorado.

Drop City (1966-1968)

Joined Drop City in 1966 (a year after its 1965 founding). Got his “Dropper name” when a visiting Denver Post reporter asked his name — he’d been hunting rabbits for meat and said “Peter Rabbit,” and it stuck. Organized visits to schools and campuses screening Drop City films and a spinning strobe-lit painting made by Clark Richert and others; helped design Day-Glo posters marketed globally by a New York firm.

Wrote Drop City (Olympia Press, 1971) — a first-person, quasi-underground memoir mixing factual history, fiction, and prose poetry, called “the most substantial work” written on the commune. It paints a bleak later-years picture: “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 is credited with bringing significant outside attention to Drop City — attention some accounts say also helped destabilize it.

Libre commune (1968-1979)

Left Drop City in 1968 and, with Dean Fleming, helped found Libre in Gardner, Colorado (Huerfano Valley) — described as the oldest continuously operating hippie commune in the nation. Lived at Libre 1968-1979. His son John Lawton Douthit died in a car accident during this period. He met Anne MacNaughton at Libre and had a son, Michael Amergin Douthit, with her. In 1979 he was arrested for growing marijuana at Libre and sentenced to a year in prison.

Later life — Taos Poetry Circus

Returned to Taos in the 1980s. With wife/poet Anne MacNaughton, co-founded the Taos Poetry Circus (1982-2003), known for the “World Heavyweight Championship Poetry Bout” (a mock-boxing poetry duel that drew Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka, and others). He played showman, dubbed the “Don King of Poetry,” known for a trademark red fez. Also a founding member of 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 by Crescent Press.

Family

Wife Anne MacNaughton (poet); daughter Katie Douthit; sons John Lawton Douthit (predeceased) and Michael Amergin Douthit. 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.”

Flags / uncertainties

Gap between “1954 Taos arts community” and “1966 Drop City” dates is not reconciled by any source found.
No source directly documents a personal relationship with Gene Bernofsky specifically (only Clark Richert and Dean Fleming are directly linked).
Full list of Libre co-founders beyond Douthit and Fleming not confirmed.

Supporting URLs

Source: web research compiled 2026-07-19 for wiki article expansion.