Professor Saves Poet!
Posted in Uncategorized on August 21st, 2009 by Tammy – Be the first to comment
Colorado Pete with a knitting machine, at the Woodmen Sanatorium near Colorado Springs, Colorado, 1923.
Professor Lawrence Moe has published a book making available for the first time the life and work of a virtually unknown figure from Midwestern literary history. “Colorado Pete” is the pen name of a Minnesotan named Arthur Owen Peterson (1896-1932). He was raised in Bagley and attended Carleton College before joining the US Army to serve in France during World War I. And for that he paid a price, as Dr. Moe has written:
“He wasn’t wounded by enemy fire, but he was wounded. Amoebic dysentery was the most clear and immediate problem, but there was something else, perhaps in his present and certainly in his future. From this time forward Arthur’s life would be characterized by a cycle, a grim and terrible cycle: a period of health and energy, followed by a very different period of sickness and suffering. And that second period gradually took over.” read more »
