# Yale Series of Younger Poets

The Yale Series of Younger Poets is an annual event of Yale University Press aiming to publish the debut collection of a promising American poet. Established in 1918, the Younger Poets Prize is the longest-running annual literary award in the United States.
Each year, the Younger Poets Competition accepts submissions from American poets who have not previously published a book of poetry. Once the judge has chosen a winner, the Press publishes a book-length manuscript of the winner's poetry as the next volume in the series. All poems must be original, and only one manuscript may be entered at a time.

## Rules and eligibility

Contest requirements were first articulated in the summer of 1920. The series had already published four books, all written by Yale students, and the judges sought to attract a nationwide pool of applicants. A promotional statement gave the following, somewhat vague eligibility requirements: "Anyone is eligible provided he (or she) is young and comparatively unknown. The age limit is understood to be about thirty." A formal set of rules was adopted in 1924. In addition to specifying page limits and other manuscript requirements, these new rules limited the contest to American citizens younger than 30. However, current rules allow poets of any age who have not published a book of poetry to be considered. Although the contest was briefly opened to any writer of English-language poetry under Auden's judgeship, it has remained limited to American citizens ever since.

## History
### 20th century

The Younger Poets Series was established in 1919 by Clarence Day, whose brother George Parmly Day founded Yale University Press with his wife Wilhelmine in 1908. The competition's first judge, Charlton Miner Lewis, was a prominent professor in Yale's English department. The inaugural competition took place after the end of World War I, just as an influx of young veterans returned from fighting in Europe and entered college. Modernist poetry emerged in this period, but early entries in the series reflected the neoclassical tastes of the older generation adjudicating the competition, all men who had received degrees from Yale in the late-19th century. The anglophilic publishers were heavily influenced by English poetry, especially the contemporary Georgian poetry, and the competition itself was directly influenced by the similar "Adventures All" poetry series of Oxford University Press.
The contest solidified its importance in American literature under the judgeship of Stephen Vincent Benét. Benet was judge from 1933 to 1942, followed by Archibald MacLeish from 1944 to 1946. Margaret Walker's For My People was the last volume selected by Benet. Auden assumed the judgeship after MacLeish.
The contest is regarded by some to have been at its height from 1947 to 1959, when W. H. Auden was its judge. His then-young poets included Adrienne Rich, James Wright, W. S. Merwin, John Ashbery, and John Hollander. The period was also notable for the two-time refusal of Sylvia Plath's manuscript Two Lovers, and Colossus, which was subsequently published in England.
Between 1969 and 1977, overseen by Stanley Kunitz, included volumes by Carolyn Forché and Robert Hass; Hass later became the Poet Laureate of the United States.

### 21st century

The judgeship of W. S. Merwin, from 1998 to 2003, was fraught with controversy, as he refused to select a winner the first year that he was judge. Louise Glück, who is widely considered to have revived the prize's stature, judged the award from 2003 to 2010. Rae Armantrout is the current judge.

## Judges

* Judges of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition
* Charlton M. Lewis (1919–1923)
* Frederick E. Pierce (1923)
* Edward Bliss Reed (1923–24)
* William Alexander Percy (1925–1932)
* Stephen Vincent Benét (1933–1942)
* Archibald MacLeish (1942–1945)
* W. H. Auden (1946–1958)
* Dudley Fitts (1958–1968)
* Stanley Kunitz (1969–1976)
* Richard Hugo (1946–1958)
* James Merrill (1983–1989)
* James Dickey (1990–1996)
* W. S. Merwin (1997–2003)
* Louise Glück (2003–2010)
* Carl Phillips (2011–2020)
* Rae Armantrout (2021–present)

## Past winners

The year column provides the date of the competition. The winning poetry collections are published the following year.
| Year | Vol. | Poet | Title | Judge |
| 1918 | 1 | Howard Buck | The Tempering | Charlton M. Lewis |
| 1918 | 2 | John C. Farrar | Forgotten Shrines | Charlton M. Lewis |
| 1919 | 3 | David Osborne Hamilton | Four Gardens | Charlton M. Lewis |
| 1919 | 4 | Alfred Raymond Bellinger | Spires and Poplars | Charlton M. Lewis |
| 1919 | 5 | Thomas Caldecot Chubb | The White God and Other Poems | Charlton M. Lewis |
| 1919 | 6 | Darl MacLeod Boyle | Where Lilith Dances | Charlton M. Lewis |
| 1920 | 7 | Theodore H. Jr. Banks | Wild Geese | Charlton M. Lewis |
| 1920 | 8 | Viola C. White | Horizons | Charlton M. Lewis |
| 1920 | 9 | Hervey Allen | Wampum and Old Gold | Charlton M. Lewis |
| 1920 | 10 | Oscar Williams | Golden Darkness | Charlton M. Lewis |
| 1921 | 11 | Harold Vinal | White April | Charlton M. Lewis |
| 1921 | 12 | Medora C. Addison | Dreams and a Sword | Charlton M. Lewis |
| 1921 | 13 | Bernard Raymund | Hidden Waters | Charlton M. Lewis |
| 1921 | 14 | Paul Tanaquil | Attitudes | Charlton M. Lewis |
| 1922 | 15 | Dean B. Jr. Lyman | The Last Lutanist | Charlton M. Lewis |
| 1922 | 16 | Amos Niven Wilder | Battle-Retrospect | Charlton M. Lewis |
| 1922 | 17 | Marion M. Boyd | Silver Wands | Frederick E. Pierce |
| 1922 | 18 | Beatrice E. Harmon | Mosaics | Frederick E. Pierce |
| 1923 | 19 | Elizabeth Jessup Blake | Up and Down | Edward Bliss Reed |
| 1924 | 20 | Dorothy E. Reid | Coach into Pumpkin | William Alexander Percy |
| 1925 | 21 | Eleanor Slater | Quest | William Alexander Percy |
| 1925 | 22 | Thomas Hornsby Ferril | High Passage | William Alexander Percy |
| 1926 | 23 | Lindley Williams Hubbell | Dark Pavilion | William Alexander Percy |
| 1927 | 24 | Mildred Bowers | Twist o' Smoke | William Alexander Percy |
| 1927 | 25 | Ted Olson | A Stranger and Afraid | William Alexander Percy |
| 1927 | 26 | Francis Claiborne Mason | This Unchanging Mask | William Alexander Percy |
| 1928 | 27 | Frances M. Frost | Hemlock Wall | William Alexander Percy |
| 1928 | 28 | Henri Faust | Half-Light and Overture | William Alexander Percy |
| 1929 | 29 | Louise Owen | Virtuosa | William Alexander Percy |
| 1930 | 30 | Dorothy Belle Flanagan (aka Dorothy B. Hughes) | Dark Certainty | William Alexander Percy |
| 1931 | 31 | Paul Engle | Worn Earth | William Alexander Percy |
| 1932 | 32 | Shirley Barker | The Dark Hills Under | Stephen Vincent Benét |
| 1933 | 33 | James Agee | Permit Me Voyage | Stephen Vincent Benét |
| 1934 | 34 | Muriel Rukeyser | Theory of Flight | Stephen Vincent Benét |
| 1935 | 35 | Edward Weismiller | The Deer Come Down | Stephen Vincent Benét |
| 1936 | 36 | Margaret Haley | The Gardener Mind | Stephen Vincent Benét |
| 1937 | 37 | Joy Davidman | Letter to a Comrade | Stephen Vincent Benét |
| 1938 | 38 | Reuel Denney | The Connecticut River and Other Poems | Stephen Vincent Benét |
| 1939 | 39 | Norman Rosten | Return Again, Traveler | Stephen Vincent Benét |
| 1940 | 40 | Jeremy Ingalls | The Metaphysical Sword | Stephen Vincent Benét |
| 1941 | 41 | Margaret Walker | For My People | Stephen Vincent Benét |
| 1942 | No winner selected | No winner selected | No winner selected | Archibald MacLeish |
| 1943 | 42 | William Morris Jr. Meredith | Love Letters from an Impossible Land | Archibald MacLeish |
| 1944 | 43 | Charles E. Butler | Cut Is the Branch | Archibald MacLeish |
| 1945 | 44 | Eve Merriam | Family Circle | Archibald MacLeish |
| 1946 | 45 | Joan Murray | Poems | W. H. Auden |
| 1947 | 46 | Robert Horan | A Beginning | W. H. Auden |
| 1948 | 47 | Rosalie Moore | The Grasshopper's Man and Other Poems | W. H. Auden |
| 1949 | No winner selected | No winner selected | No winner selected | W. H. Auden |
| 1950 | 48 | Adrienne Rich | A Change of World | W. H. Auden |
| 1951 | 49 | W. S. Merwin | A Mask for Janus | W. H. Auden |
| 1952 | 50 | Edgar Bogardus | Various Jangling Keys | W. H. Auden |
| 1953 | 51 | Daniel Hoffman | An Armada of Thirty Whales | W. H. Auden |
| 1954 | No winner selected | No winner selected | No winner selected | W. H. Auden |
| 1955 | 52 | John Ashbery | Some Trees | W. H. Auden |
| 1956 | 53 | James Wright | The Green Wall | W. H. Auden |
| 1957 | 54 | John Hollander | A Crackling of Thorns | W. H. Auden |
| 1958 | 55 | William Dickey | Of the Festivity | W. H. Auden |
| 1959 | 56 | George Starbuck | Bone Thoughts | Dudley Fitts |
| 1960 | 57 | Alan Dugan | Poems | Dudley Fitts |
| 1961 | 58 | Jack Gilbert | Views of Jeopardy | Dudley Fitts |
| 1962 | 59 | Sandra Hochman | Manhattan Pastures | Dudley Fitts |
| 1963 | 60 | Peter Davison | The Breaking of the Day | Dudley Fitts |
| 1964 | 61 | Jean Valentine | Dream Barker | Dudley Fitts |
| 1965 | No winner selected | No winner selected | No winner selected | Dudley Fitts |
| 1966 | 62 | James Tate | The Lost Pilot | Dudley Fitts |
| 1967 | 63 | Helen Chasin | Coming Close and Other Poems | Dudley Fitts |
| 1968 | 64 | Judith Johnson Sherwin | Uranium Poems | Dudley Fitts |
| 1969 | 65 | Hugh Seidman | Collecting Evidence | Stanley Kunitz |
| 1970 | 66 | Peter Klappert | Lugging Vegetables to Nantucket | Stanley Kunitz |
| 1971 | 67 | Michael Casey | Obscenities | Stanley Kunitz |
| 1972 | 68 | Robert Hass | Field Guide | Stanley Kunitz |
| 1973 | 69 | Michael Ryan | Threats Instead of Trees | Stanley Kunitz |
| 1974 | 70 | Maura Stanton | Snow on Snow | Stanley Kunitz |
| 1975 | 71 | Carolyn Forché | Gathering the Tribes | Stanley Kunitz |
| 1976 | 72 | Olga Broumas | Beginning with O | Stanley Kunitz |
| 1977 | 73 | Bin Ramke | The Difference Between Night and Day | Richard Hugo |
| 1978 | 74 | Leslie Ullman | Natural Histories | Richard Hugo |
| 1979 | 75 | William Virgil Davis | One Way to Reconstruct the Scene | Richard Hugo |
| 1980 | 76 | John Bensko | Green Soldiers | Richard Hugo |
| 1981 | 77 | David Wojahn | Icehouse Lights | Richard Hugo |
| 1982 | 78 | Cathy Song | Picture Bride | Richard Hugo |
| 1983 | 79 | Richard Kenney | The Evolution of the Flightless Bird | James Merrill |
| 1984 | 80 | Pamela Alexander | Navigable Waterways | James Merrill |
| 1985 | 81 | George Bradley | Terms to Be Met | James Merrill |
| 1986 | 82 | Julie Agoos | Above the Land | James Merrill |
| 1987 | 83 | Brigit Pegeen Kelly | To the Place of Trumpets | James Merrill |
| 1988 | 84 | Thomas Bolt | Out of the Woods | James Merrill |
| 1989 | 85 | Daniel Hall | Hermit with Landscape | James Merrill |
| 1990 | 86 | Christiane Jacox Kyle | Bears Dancing in the Northern Air | James Dickey |
| 1991 | 87 | Nicholas Samaras | Hands of the Saddlemaker | James Dickey |
| 1992 | 88 | Jody Gladding | Stone Crop | James Dickey |
| 1993 | 89 | Valerie Wohlfeld | Thinking the World Visible | James Dickey |
| 1994 | 90 | Tony Crunk | Living in the Resurrection | James Dickey |
| 1995 | 91 | Ellen Hinsey | Cities of Memory | James Dickey |
| 1996 | 92 | Talvikki Ansel | My Shining Archipelago | James Dickey |
| 1997 | No winner selected | No winner selected | No winner selected | W. S. Merwin |
| 1998 | 93 | Craig Arnold | Shells | W. S. Merwin |
| 1999 | 94 | Davis McCombs | Ultima Thule | W. S. Merwin |
| 2000 | 95 | Maurice Manning | Lawrence Booth's Book of Visions | W. S. Merwin |
| 2001 | 96 | Sean Singer | Discography | W. S. Merwin |
| 2002 | 97 | Loren Goodman | Famous Americans | W. S. Merwin |
| 2003 | 98 | Peter Streckfus | The Cuckoo | W. S. Merwin |
| 2004 | 99 | Richard Siken | Crush | Louise Glück |
| 2005 | 100 | Jay Hopler | Green Squall | Louise Glück |
| 2006 | 101 | Jessica Fisher | Frail-Craft | Louise Glück |
| 2007 | 102 | Fady Joudah | The Earth in the Attic | Louise Glück |
| 2008 | 103 | Arda Collins | It Is Daylight | Louise Glück |
| 2009 | 104 | Ken Chen | Juvenilia | Louise Glück |
| 2010 | 105 | Katherine Larson | Radial Symmetry | Louise Glück |
| 2011 | 106 | Eduardo C. Corral | Slow Lightning | Carl Phillips |
| 2012 | 107 | Will Schutt | Westerly | Carl Phillips |
| 2013 | 108 | Eryn Green | Eruv | Carl Phillips |
| 2014 | 109 | Ansel Elkins | Blue Yodel | Carl Phillips |
| 2015 | 110 | Noah Warren | The Destroyer in the Glass | Carl Phillips |
| 2016 | 111 | Airea D. Matthews | simulacra | Carl Phillips |
| 2017 | 112 | Duy Doan | We Play a Game | Carl Phillips |
| 2018 | 113 | Yanyi | The Year of Blue Water | Carl Phillips |
| 2019 | 114 | Jill Osier | The Solace Is Not the Lullaby | Carl Phillips |
| 2020 | 115 | Desiree C. Bailey | What Noise Against The Cane | Carl Phillips |
| 2021 | 116 | Robert Wood Lynn | Mothman Apologia | Rae Armantrout |
| 2022 | 117 | Mary-Alice Daniel | Mass for Shut-Ins | Rae Armantrout |
| 2023 | 118 | Cindy Juyoung Ok | Ward Toward | Rae Armantrout |