Richard Dankleff Sound Recording, 2010

Overview of the Collection

Creator
Dankleff, Richard.
Title
Richard Dankleff Sound Recording
Dates
2010 (inclusive)
Quantity
0.01 cubic foot, including 1 compact disc, (1 box)
Collection Number
MSS Dankleff
Summary
The Richard Dankleff Sound Recording consists of Dankleff reading poetry, primarily written by him. The original recording was made in the late 1980s. Dankleff was a faculty member in the Oregon State University English Department from 1963 until his retirement in 1987.
Repository
Oregon State University Libraries, Special Collections and Archives Research Center
Special Collections and Archives Research Center
121 The Valley Library
Oregon State University
Corvallis OR
97331-4501
Telephone: 5417372075
Fax: 5417378674
scarc@oregonstate.edu
Access Restrictions

Collection is open for research.

Languages
English

Biographical NoteReturn to Top

Richard Elden Dankleff was a faculty member in the Oregon State University English Department from 1963 until his retirement in 1987. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, he wrote poetry and led a poetry workshop in the Corvallis community. He continued to mentor other writers of poetry after his retirement. Dankleff's poetry was published as individual pieces as well as in three collections. Popcorn Girl (1979) and Westerns (1984) were published by the Oregon State University Press; Off Watch was published by Oregon Sunrise Press in 2001.

Dankleff attended the University of Nebraska before serving in World War II. After the war, he completed a BS at Columbia University in 1949. Dankleff earned an MA from the University of Nebraska in 1954 and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1959. He died in Corvallis in 2010.

Content DescriptionReturn to Top

The Richard Dankleff Sound Recording consists of readings by Dankleff of his own poems as well as selections by William Butler Yeats and William Shakespeare. The recording is about 60 minutes in length and includes 48 poems. Dankleff begins with Shakespeare and several pieces by William Butler Yeats. He then reads his own work, alternating between pieces that had been published in Popcorn Girl and what Dankleff referred to as his "Merchant Marine Poems". These are earlier versions of poems that would later be published in Off Watch. A full listing of the contents of the recording are available with the CD.

The recording was made in the late 1980s for John and Diana Van Driesche, and their son Richard, who was named for Dankleff. The Van Driesches played the original recording (on cassette tape) at a memorial service for Dankleff and were encouraged to duplicate the tape to compact disc and make it available to others.

Use of the CollectionReturn to Top

Preferred Citation

Richard Dankleff Sound Recording, Oregon State University Archives, Corvallis, Oregon.

Administrative InformationReturn to Top

Acquisition Information

The compact disc was donated to the Archives by Diana Van Driesche in 2010.

Related Materials

The OSU Archives houses the papers of several Oregon State English faculty including Peter Copek; Elizabeth Henley, also a poet; Ray S. Hewitt; Sigurd H. and Ruth Peterson; and M. Ellwood Smith. The English Department Records are part of the College of Liberal Arts Records (RG 143). The English Department Photographs (P 222) consist of photographs of Bernard Malamud during his years as a faculty member at Oregon State; the OSU Libraries Special Collections includes the Bernard Malamud Papers. The Edwin T. Reed Papers include poetry written by Reed. Poems are included in numerous other collections held by the Archives, including the Memorabilia Collection (MC-Poems).

Names and SubjectsReturn to Top

Subject Terms

  • American poetry--Oregon.
  • Oral interpretation of poetry.

Form or Genre Terms

  • Compact discs.