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Guide to the Robert Peterson Papers
MS 44
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Table of contents
Title: Robert Peterson papers
Dates: 1945-1990
Collection number: MS 44
Creator:
Peterson, Robert
Collection Size:
1 document box
Repository:
University of California, Santa Cruz. University Library.
Special Collections and Archives
Santa Cruz, California 95064
Abstract: This collection contains correspondence, manuscripts, drafts and annotated typescripts of poet, Robert Peterson.
Physical location: Stored offsite at NRLF: Advance notice is required for access to the papers.
Languages:
Languages represented in the collection:
English
Collection open for research.
Property rights reside with the University of California. Literary rights are retained by the creators of the records and
their heirs. For permission to publish or to reproduce the material, please contact the Head of Special Collections and Archives.
Robert Peterson papers. MS 44. Special Collections and Archives, University Library, University of
California, Santa Cruz.
Gift of Robert Peterson and Carolyn Stoloff.
The author of nine books and a widely anthologized poet, Robert Peterson was born in Denver in 1924. His childhood was spent
in San Francisco at the Fielding Hotel, a Union Square hotel owned by his adoptive parents. There he developed a sharp idiosyncratic
eye for human nature that would later give his poems their particular style and charm. He was writer-in-residence at Reed
College, Portland Oregon from 1969-1971. After leaving Reed College, Peterson lived in Taos, New Mexico, where he wrote a
collection of poems,
Leaving Taos, that was named a National Poetry Series selection in 1981. He then returned to the Bay Area, where he started his own publishing
company, Black Dog Press, and created artworks that were shown in local galleries. He also served a writer-in-residence at
Oregon's Willamette University from 1991-1992. Peterson was one of the first artists to win a grant from the National Endowment
for the Arts after its founding in 1965, and one of the first to edit an anthrology of poems in opposition to the Vietnam
War.
Robert Peterson died of cancer in September 2001 at the age of 76.
Scope and Content of Collection
This collection contains early correspondence from Peterson to his parents, outgoing correspondence to long time friend and
poet Carolyn Stoloff, manuscripts, drafts and annotated typescripts of poems.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in
the library's online public access catalog.
Peterson, Robert--Archives
Authors, American--California--Santa Cruz County
American poetry--20th century
Santa Cruz County (Calif.)--Imprints
Stoloff, Carolyn