LOON LAKE

From Loon Lake

(1979)

Herewith bio the poet Warren Penfield

Born Indianapolis Indiana August 2 1899

Moved at an early age with parents to southern Colorado

First place Ludlow Consolidated Grade School Spelling Bee 1908

Ludlow Colorado Boy of the Year 1913

Colorado State Mental Asylum x1914, 1915

Enlisted US Army Signal Corps 1916

Valedictorian US Army Semaphore School Augusta Georgia

Assigned First Carrier Pigeon Company Seventh Signal Battalion

First division, AEF. Saw action Somme Offensive

pigeons having the shit shot out of them feathers falling over

trenches blasted in bits like snowflakes shifting through the

concussions of air or balancing on the thin fountain of a scream.

Citation accompanying Silver Star awarded Warren

Penfield 1918: that his company of pigeons having been

rendered inoperable and all other signal apparatus including

field telephone no longer available to him Corporal Penfield

did stand in an exposed position lit by flare under enemy

heavy fire and transmit in extended arm semaphore the urgent

communication of his battalion commander until accurate and

redemptive fire from his own artillery indicated the message

had been received. This was not true. What he transmitted

via full arm semaphore under enemy heavy fire was the first

verse of English poet William Wordsworth’s Ode Intimations

of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood as follows

quote: There was a time when meadow grove and stream the

earth and every common sight to me did seem apparelled in

celestial light the glory and the freshness of a dream...endquote.

So informed Secretary of Army in letter July 4 1918, medal enclosed.

Incarceration US Army Veterans PsychologicalFacility Nutley New Jersey 1918...



					From Loon Lake (1979) Herewith bio the poet Warren Penfield Born Indianapolis Indiana August 2 1899 Moved at an early age with parents to southern Colorado First place Ludlow Consolidated Grade School Spelling Bee 1908 Ludlow Colorado Boy of the Year 1913 Colorado State Mental Asylum x1914, 1915 Enlisted US Army Signal Corps 1916 Valedictorian US Army Semaphore School Augusta Georgia Assigned First Carrier Pigeon Company Seventh Signal Battalion First division, AEF. Saw action Somme Offensive pigeons having the shit shot out of them feathers falling over trenches blasted in bits like snowflakes shifting through the concussions of air or balancing on the thin fountain of a scream. Citation accompanying Silver Star awarded Warren Penfield 1918: that his company of pigeons having been rendered inoperable and all other signal apparatus including field telephone no longer available to him Corporal Penfield did stand in an exposed position lit by flare under enemy heavy fire and transmit in extended arm semaphore the urgent communication of his battalion commander until accurate and redemptive fire from his own artillery indicated the message had been received. This was not true. What he transmitted via full arm semaphore under enemy heavy fire was the first verse of English poet William Wordsworth’s Ode Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood as follows quote: There was a time when meadow grove and stream the earth and every common sight to me did seem apparelled in celestial light the glory and the freshness of a dream...endquote. So informed Secretary of Army in letter July 4 1918, medal enclosed. Incarceration US Army Veterans PsychologicalFacility Nutley New Jersey 1918... —Loon Lake

		“Doctorow is a magician... His prose is dazzling.” —Vogue “Powerful... [A] complex and haunting meditation on modern American history.” —The New York Times “A genuine thriller... a marvelous exploration of the complexities and contradictions of the American dream... Not under any circumstances would we reveal the truly shattering climax.” —The Dallas Morning News “A dazzling performance... [Loon Lake] anatomizes America with insight, passion, and inventiveness.” —The Washington Post Book World “Hypnotic... tantalizes long after it has ended.” —Time “A masterpiece.” —Chicago Sun-Times “Doctorow’s most prodigious work— wonderfully brave, enthralling, the best American book I have read in several years.” —Susan Sontag “E.L. Doctorow is an astonishing novelist —astonishing not only in the virtuosity with which he deploys his mimetic and linguistic skills, but also in the fact that it is impossible to predict even roughly the shape, scope and tone of one of his novels from its predecessors.” —Robert Towers, New York Times Book Review