Title: John Knoepfle Typescripts (VMF091), 1964-1967
Administrative/Biographical History
John Knoepfle (1923 - ) is the author of some 17 books of poetry, as well as many prose pieces on a variety of subjects. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, he served as a boat officer aboard an attack transport in the Pacific in World War II, taking part in the landings at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He received his Ph.B. (1947) and M.A. (1949) from Xavier University and his Ph.D. from St. Louis University (1965).
In the 1950s he tape recorded some 60 river men of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. From 1957-1961, Knoepfle taught English at the East St. Louis Residence Center, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. From 1961-1965, he was assistant professor of English at Maryville College in St. Louis. From 1966-1972, he taught creative writing and literature at St. Louis University. From 1972-1991, he was professor of literature at the University of Illinois at Springfield (formerly Sangamon State University). During these years, Knoepfle taught Creative Writing, Shakespeare and Elizabethan Drama, Folk Literature, Native American Novel, and Contemporary Poetry. He also founded the university’s annual Verbal Arts Festival.
His first book, Rivers into Islands, was published in 1965. Other books include The Intricate Land (1969), Selected Poems (1985), Poems from the Sangamon (1985), Begging an Amnesty (1994), The Chinkapin Oak (1995), and Prayer Against Famine and Other Irish Poems (2004). His most recent books, Walking in Snow and I Look Around for My Life: An Autobiography, which covers his formative years, were published in 2008.
