Cathryn Hankla's collection contains her poetry, short stories, plays, and novels from 1971 to 1992. The material documents the development and maturation of Hankla from the age of 13. The bulk of Hankla's collection is in her poetry drafts (1971-1989) and her published work (1980-1992). There are no significant gaps in her collection since its contents are spread out evenly throughout its 21 year period.Another strength of Hankla's papers is in her poetry. Containing the poems that she has written over a 18 year range, many of her initial poems have been revised repeatedly. These drafts provide an insight to her development as a poet and writer by demonstrating the obvious changes in her style, form, and content. The weakness of this collection is the lack of any biographical information about Cathryn Hankla. Except for some passing information in some of her book reviews, there is no significant information about Hankla herself. In this collection of novels, poetry, short stories, plays, theses, and notes, a large area of interest is in her published work. This is especially true in examples like Phenomena, Learning the Mother Tongue, A Blue Moon in Poorwater, and Afterimages that contain a complete set of correspondence, drafts, and reviews. Specifically, the correspondence shows her initial contact with numerous publishing companies and her continuous discussion with the eventual publisher about the evolution of her work. As a result, the collection documents the complete development of her work from draft to review. Presently, Hankla is not represented in any other repository.
