# National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry

The National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, established in 1975, is an annual American literary award presented by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English". Awards are presented annually to books published in the U.S. during the preceding calendar year in six categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Memoir/Autobiography, Biography, and Criticism.
Books previously published in English are not eligible, such as re-issues and paperback editions. They do consider "translations, short story and essay collections, self-published books, and any titles that fall under the general categories".
The judges are the volunteer directors of the NBCC, who are 24 members serving rotating three-year terms, with eight elected annually by the voting members, namely "professional book review editors and book reviewers". Winners of the awards are announced each year at the NBCC awards ceremony in conjunction with the yearly membership meeting, which takes place in March.

## Recipients

National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry winners and finalists :
| Year | Author | Title | Result |
| 1975 | John Ashbery | Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror | Winner |
| 1976 | Elizabeth Bishop | Geography III | Winner |
| 1977 | Robert Lowell | Day by Day | Winner |
| 1978 | L. E. Sissman | Hello, Darkness: The Collected Poems of L. E. Sissman | Winner |
| 1979 | Philip Levine | Ashes: Poems New and Old and 7 Years From Somewhere | Winner |
| 1980 | Frederick Seidel | Sunrise | Winner |
| 1981 | A.R. Ammons | A Coast of Trees | Winner |
| 1982 | Katha Pollitt | Antarctic Traveler | Winner |
| 1983 | James Merrill | The Changing Light at Sandover | Winner |
| 1984 | Sharon Olds | The Dead and the Living | Winner |
| 1985 | Louise Glück | The Triumph of Achilles | Winner |
| 1986 | Edward Hirsch | Wild Gratitude | Winner |
| 1987 | C.K. Williams | Flesh and Blood | Winner |
| 1988 | Donald Hall | The One Day | Winner |
| 1989 | Rodney Jones | Transparent Gestures | Winner |
| 1990 | Amy Gerstler | Bitter Angel | Winner |
| 1991 | Albert Goldbarth | Heaven and Earth: A Cosmology | Winner |
| 1992 | Hayden Carruth | Collected Shorter Poems 1946–1991 | Winner |
| 1992 | David Ferry | Gilgamesh | Finalist |
| 1992 | Maxine Kumin | Looking for Luck | Finalist |
| 1992 | Sharon Olds | The Father | Finalist |
| 1992 | K.C. Williams | A Dream of Mine | Finalist |
| 1993 | Mark Doty | My Alexandria | Winner |
| 1993 | Donald Hall | The Museum of Clear Ideas | Finalist |
| 1993 | Linda Hogan | The Book of Medicines | Finalist |
| 1993 | Audre Lorde | The Marvelous Arithmetic of Distance | Finalist |
| 1993 | Jack Marshall | Sesame | Finalist |
| 1994 | Mark Rudman | Rider | Winner |
| 1994 | Dorianne Laux | What We Carry | Finalist |
| 1994 | Marilyn Hacker | Winter Numbers | Finalist |
| 1994 | Philip Levine | The Simple Truth | Finalist |
| 1994 | Mary Jo Salter | Sunday Skaters | Finalist |
| 1995 | William Matthews | Time and Money | Winner |
| 1995 | Lynda Hull | The Only World | Finalist |
| 1995 | James Merrill | A Scattering of Salts | Finalist |
| 1995 | Carl Phillips | Cortege | Finalist |
| 1995 | Ellen Bryant Voigt | Kyrie | Finalist |
| 1996 | Robert Hass | Sun Under Wood | Winner |
| 1996 | Stephen Dunn | Loosestrife | Finalist |
| 1996 | Martín Espada | Imagine the Angels of Bread | Finalist |
| 1996 | Jane Shore | Music Minus One | Finalist |
| 1996 | C.K. Williams | The Vigil | Finalist |
| 1997 | Charles Wright | Black Zodiac | Winner |
| 1997 | Frank Bidart | Desire | Finalist |
| 1997 | Brenda Hillman | Loose Sugar | Finalist |
| 1997 | Mark Jarman | Questions for Ecclesiastes | Finalist |
| 1997 | Sonya Sanchez | Does Your House Have Lions? | Finalist |
| 1998 | Marie Ponsot | The Bird Catcher | Winner |
| | Pamela White Hadas | Self-Evidence | Finalist |
| | Thylias Moss | Last Chance for the Tarzan Holler | Finalist |
| | Anne Carson | The Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse | Finalist |
| | Yusef Komunyakaa | Thieves of Paradise | Finalist |
| 1999 | Ruth Stone | Ordinary Words | Winner |
| | Rafael Campo | Diva | Finalist |
| | Tory Dent | HIV, Mon Amour | Finalist |
| | Rita Dove | On the Bus With Rosa Parks | Finalist |
| | Susan Kingsolving | Dailies & Rushes | Finalist |
| 2000 | Judy Jordan | Carolina Ghost Woods | Winner |
| | Michael Collier | The Ledge | Finalist |
| | Anne Carson | Men in the Off Hours | Finalist |
| | Yusef Komunyakaa | Talking Dirty to the Gods | Finalist |
| | Davis McCombs | Ultima Thule | Finalist |
| 2001 | Albert Goldbarth | Saving Lives | Winner |
| 2001 | Louise Gluck | The Seven Ages | Finalist |
| 2001 | Bob Hicok | Animal Soul | Finalist |
| 2001 | Jane Hirshfield | Given Sugar, Given Salt | Finalist |
| 2001 | Czeslaw Milosz | A Treatise on Poetry | Finalist |
| 2002 | B.H. Fairchild | Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest | Winner |
| 2002 | Major Jackson | Leaving Saturn | Finalist |
| 2002 | Harryette Mullen | Sleeping With the Dictionary | Finalist |
| 2002 | Sharon Olds | The Unswept Room | Finalist |
| 2002 | Adam Zagajewski | Without End: New and Selected Poems | Finalist |
| 2003 | Susan Stewart | Columbarium | Winner |
| 2003 | Carolyn Forche | Blue Hour | Finalist |
| 2003 | Tony Hoagland | What Narcissism Means to Me | Finalist |
| 2003 | Venus Khoury-Ghata | She Says | Finalist |
| 2003 | Mary Szybist, tr. Marilyn Hacker | Granted | Finalist |
| 2004 | Adrienne Rich | The School Among the Ruins | Winner |
| 2004 | Brigit Pegeen Kelly | The Orchard | Finalist |
| 2004 | D.A. Powell | Cocktails | Finalist |
| 2004 | James Richardson | Interglacial | Finalist |
| 2004 | Gary Snyder | Danger on Peaks | Finalist |
| 2005 | Jack Gilbert | Refusing Heaven | Winner |
| 2005 | Simon Armitage | The Shout | Finalist |
| 2005 | Blas Manuel de Luna | Bent to the Earth | Finalist |
| 2005 | Richard Siken | Crush | Finalist |
| 2005 | Ron Slate | The Incentive of the Maggot | Finalist |
| 2006 | Troy Jollimore | Tom Thomson in Purgatory | Winner |
| 2006 | Daisy Fried | My Brother is Getting Arrested Again | Finalist |
| 2006 | Miltos Sachtouris | Poems (1945-1971) | Finalist |
| 2006 | Frederick Seidel | Ooga-Booga | Finalist |
| 2006 | W.D. Snodgrass | Not for Specialists: New and Selected Poems | Finalist |
| 2007 | Mary Jo Bang | Elegy | Winner |
| 2007 | Matthea Harvey | Modern Life | Finalist |
| 2007 | Tadeusz Rózewicz | New Poems | Finalist |
| 2007 | Michael O'Brien | Sleeping and Waking | Finalist |
| 2007 | Tom Pickard | The Ballad of Jamie Allan | Finalist |
| 2008 | Juan Felipe Herrera | Half the World in Light | Winner (tie) |
| 2008 | August Kleinzahler | Sleeping it Off in Rapid City | Winner (tie) |
| 2008 | Brenda Shaughnessy | Human Dark with Sugar | Finalist |
| 2008 | August Kleinzahler | Sleeping it Off in Rapid City | Finalist |
| 2008 | Devin Johnston | Sources | Finalist |
| 2008 | Pierre Martory with John Ashbery (trans.) | The Landscapist | Finalist |
| 2009 | Rae Armantrout | Versed | Winner |
| 2009 | Louise Glück | A Village Life | Finalist |
| 2009 | Eleanor Ross Taylor | Captive Voices: New and Selected Poems, 1960–2008 | Finalist |
| 2009 | D. A. Powell | Chronic | Finalist |
| 2009 | Rachel Zucker | Museum of Accidents | Finalist |
| 2010 | C.D. Wright | One With Others | Winner |
| 2010 | Terrance Hayes | Lighthead | Finalist |
| 2010 | Anne Carson | Nox | Finalist |
| 2010 | Kay Ryan | The Best of It | Finalist |
| 2010 | Kathleen Graber | The Eternal City | Finalist |
| 2011 | Laura Kasischke | Space, In Chains | Winner |
| 2011 | Forrest Gander | Core Samples from the World | Finalist |
| 2011 | Bruce Smith | Devotions | Finalist |
| 2011 | Aracelis Girmay | Kingdom Animalia | Finalist |
| 2011 | Yusef Komunyakaa | The Chameleon Couch | Finalist |
| 2012 | D. A. Powell | Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys | Winner |
| 2012 | David Ferry | Bewilderment: New Poems and Translations | Finalist |
| 2012 | Allan Peterson | Fragile Acts | Finalist |
| 2012 | A. E. Stallings | Olives | Finalist |
| 2012 | Lucia Perillo | On the Spectrum of Possible Deaths | Finalist |
| 2013 | Frank Bidart | Metaphysical Dog | Winner |
| 2013 | Denise Duhamel | Blowout | Finalist |
| 2013 | Bob Hicok | Elegy Owed | Finalist |
| 2013 | Carmen Gimenez Smith | Milk and Filth | Finalist |
| 2013 | Lucie Brock-Broido | Stay, Illusion | Finalist |
| 2014 | Claudia Rankine | Citizen: An American Lyric | Winner |
| 2014 | Jake Adam York | Abide | Finalist |
| 2014 | Christian Wiman | Once in the West | Finalist |
| 2014 | Saeed Jones | Prelude to Bruise | Finalist |
| 2014 | Willie Perdomo | The Essential Hits of Shorty Bon Bon | Finalist |
| 2015 | Ross Gay | Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude | Winner |
| 2015 | Ada Limón | Bright Dead Things | Finalist |
| 2015 | Terrance Hayes | How to Be Drawn | Finalist |
| 2015 | Sinéad Morrissey | Parallax: And Selected Poems | Finalist |
| 2015 | Frank Stanford | What About This: Collected Poems of Frank Stanford | Finalist |
| 2016 | Ishion Hutchinson | House of Lords and Commons | Winner |
| 2016 | Robert Pinsky | At the Foundling Hospital | Finalist |
| 2016 | Monica Youn | Blackacre | Finalist |
| 2016 | Tyehimba Jess | Olio | Finalist |
| 2016 | Bernadette Mayer | Works and Days | Finalist |
| 2017 | Layli Long Soldier | Whereas | Winner |
| 2017 | Ana Ristovic | Directions for Use | Finalist |
| 2017 | James Longenbach | Earthling | Finalist |
| 2017 | Nuar Alsadir | Fourth Person Singular | Finalist |
| 2017 | Frank Ormsby | The Darkness of Snow | Finalist |
| 2018 | Ada Limón | The Carrying | Winner |
| 2018 | Terrance Hayes | American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin | Finalist |
| 2018 | Adam Zagajewski with Clare Cavanagh (trans.) | Asymmetry | Finalist |
| 2018 | Erika Meitner | Holy Moly Carry Me | Finalist |
| 2018 | Diane Seuss | Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl | Finalist |
| 2019 | Morgan Parker | Magical Negro | Winner |
| 2019 | Ilya Kaminsky | Deaf Republic | Finalist |
| 2019 | Brian Teare | Doomstead Days | Finalist |
| 2019 | Mary Ruefle | Dunce | Finalist |
| 2019 | Jericho Brown | The Tradition | Finalist |
| 2020 | Francine J. Harris | Here Is the Sweet Hand | Winner |
| 2020 | Danez Smith | Homie | Finalist |
| 2020 | Amaud Jamaul Johnson | Imperial Liquor | Finalist |
| 2020 | Victoria Chang | Obit | Finalist |
| 2020 | Chris Nealon | The Shore | Finalist |
| 2021 | Diane Seuss | Frank: Sonnets | Winner |
| 2021 | B.K. Fischer | Ceive | Finalist |
| 2021 | Rajiv Mohabir | Cultish | Finalist |
| 2021 | Donika Kelly | The Renunciations: Poems | Finalist |
| 2021 | Cheswayo Mphanza | The Rinehart Frames | Finalist |
| 2022 | Cynthia Cruz | Hotel Oblivion | Winner |
| 2022 | Paul Hlava Ceballos | banana [ ] | Finalist |
| 2022 | David Hernandez | Hello I Must Be Going | Finalist |
| 2022 | Mosab Abu Toha | Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear | Finalist |
| 2022 | Bernadette Mayer | Milkweed Smithereens | Finalist |
| 2023 | Kim Hyesoon | Phantom Pain Wings | Winner |
| 2023 | Romeo Oriogun | The Gathering of Bastards | Finalist |
| 2023 | Robyn Schiff | Information Desk | Finalist |
| 2023 | Charif Shanahan | Trace Evidence | Finalist |