Yale Series of Younger Poets

The **Yale Series of Younger Poets** is a yearly event of Yale University Press to print the first book of poems by a new American poet. It began in 1919. It is the longest-running yearly literary award in the United States.

Each year, the Younger Poets Competition accepts books from American poets who have not yet published a book of poetry. Once the judge chooses a winner, that book is printed as the next book in the series. All poems must be original. Only one book may be entered at a time.

Winners get a $1,000 advance payment and a contract to publish their book. They also get one of the five writing fellowships at The James Merrill House in Stonington, CT. There they will have a furnished living space and daily access to James Merrill’s apartment. This gives the writer a quiet place to work on a literary or academic project.

## Judges

- Present: Rae Armantrout
- 2011 – 2020: Carl Phillips
- 2003 – 2010: Louise Glück
- 1997 – 2003: W. S. Merwin
- 1990 – 1996: James Dickey
- 1983 – 1989: James Merrill
- 1977 – 1982: Richard Hugo
- 1969 – 1976: Stanley Kunitz
- 1958 – 1968: Dudley Fitts
- 1946 – 1958: W. H. Auden
- 1942 – 1945: Archibald MacLeish
- 1933 – 1942: Stephen Vincent Benét
- 1925 – 1932: William Alexander Percy
- 1923 – 1924: Edward Bliss Reed
- 1923: Frederick E. Pierce
- 1919 – 1923: Charlton M. Lewis

## Winners

- 2022 – Mary-Alice Daniel, _Mass for Shut-Ins_
- 2021 – Robert Wood Lynn, _Mothman Apologia_
- 2020 – Desiree C. Bailey, _What Noise Against the Cane_
- 2019 – Jill Osier, _The Solace Is Not the Lullaby_
- 2018 – Yanyi, _The Year of Blue Water_
- 2017 – Duy Doan, _We Play a Game_
- 2016 – Airea D. Matthews, _Simulacra_
- 2015 – Noah Warren, _The Destroyer in the Glass_
- 2014 – Ansel Elkins, _Blue Yodel_
- 2013 – Eryn Green, _Eruv_
- 2012 – Will Schutt, _Westerly_
- 2011 – Eduardo Corral, _Slow Lightning_
- 2010 – Katherine Larson, _Radial Symmetry_
- 2009 – Ken Chen, _Juvenilia_
- 2008 – Arda Collins, _It Is Daylight_
- 2007 – Fady Joudah, _The Earth in the Attic_
- 2006 – Jessica Fisher, _Frail-Craft_
- 2005 – Jay Hopler, _Green Squall_
- 2004 – Richard Siken, _Crush_
- 2003 – Peter Streckfus, _The Cuckoo_
- 2002 – Loren Goodman, _Famous Americans_
- 2001 – Sean Singer, _Discography_
- 2000 – Maurice Manning, _Lawrence Booth’s Book Of Visions_
- 1999 – Davis McCombs, _Ultima Thule_
- 1998 – Craig Arnold, _Shells_
- 1996- Talvikki Ansel, _My Shining Archipelago_
- 1995 – Ellen Hinsey, _Cities of Memory_
- 1994 – Tony Crunk, _Living in The Resurrection_
- 1993 – Valerie Wohlfield, _Thinking The World Visible_
- 1992 – Jody Gladding, _Stone Crop_
- 1991 – Nicholas Samaras, _Hands of The Saddlemaker_
- 1990 – Christiane Jacox Kyle, _Bears Dancing in the Northern Air_
- 1989 – Daniel Hall, _Hermit with Landscape_
- 1988 – Thomas Bolt, _Out of The Woods_
- 1987 – Brigit Pegeen Kelly, _To The Place of Trumpets_
- 1986 – Julie Agoos, _Above The Lands_
- 1985 – George Bradley, _Terms To Be Met_
- 1984 – Pamela Alexander, _Navigable Waterways_
- 1983 – Richard Kenney, _The Evolution of the Flightless Bird_
- 1982 – Cathy Song, _Picture Bride_
- 1981 – David Wojahn, _Icehouse Lights_
- 1980 – John Bensko, _Green Soldiers_
- 1979 – William Virgil Davis, _One Way to Reconstruct The Scene_
- 1978 – Leslie Ullman, _Natural Histories_
- 1977 – Bin Ramke, _The Difference Between Night and Day_
- 1976 – Olga Broumas, _Beginning with O_
- 1975 – Carolyn Forché, _Gathering The Tribes_
- 1974 – Maura Stanton, _Snow on Snow_
- 1973 – Michael Ryan, _Threats Instead of Trees_
- 1972 – Robert Hass, _Field Guide_
- 1971 – Michael Casey, _Obscenities_
- 1970 – Peter Klappert, _Lugging Vegetables to Nantucket_
- 1969 – Hugh Seidman, Collecting Evidence
- 1968 – Judith Johnson Sherwin, _Uranium Poems_
- 1967 – Helen Chasin, _Coming Close and Other Poems_
- 1966 – James Tate, _The Lost Pilot_
- 1964 – Jean Valentine, _Dream Barker_
- 1963 – Peter Davison, _The Breaking of the Day_
- 1962 – Sandra Hochman, _Manhattan Pastures_
- 1961 – Jack Gilbert, _Views of Jeopardy_
- 1960 – Alan Dugan, _Poems_
- 1959 – George Starbuck, _Bone Thoughts_
- 1958 – William Dickey, _Of The Festivity_
- 1957 – John Hollander, _A Crackling of Thorns_
- 1956 – James Wright, _The Green Wall_
- 1955 – John Ashbery, _Some Trees_
- 1953 – Daniel Hoffman, _An Armada of Thirty Whales_
- 1952 – Edgar Bogardus, _Various Jangling Keys_
- 1951 – W. S. Merwin, _A Mask for Janus_
- 1950 – Adrienne Rich, _A Change of World_
- 1948 – Rosalie Moore, _The Grasshopper’s Man and Other Poems_
- 1947 – Robert Horan, _A Beginning_
- 1946 – Joan Murray, _Poems_
- 1945 – Eve Merriam, _Family Circle_
- 1944 – Charles E. Butler, _Cut Is the Branch_
- 1943 – William Meredith, _Love Letters from an Impossible Land_
- 1941 – Margaret Walker, _For My People_
- 1940 – Jeremy Ingalls, _The Metaphysical Sword_
- 1939 – Norman Rosten, _Return Again, Traveler_
- 1938 – Reuel Denney, _The Connecticut River and Other Poems_
- 1937 – Joy Davidman, _Letter to a Comrade_
- 1936 – Margaret Haley, T_he Gardener Mind_
- 1935 – Edward Weis Miller, _The Deer Come Down_
- 1934 – Muriel Rukeyser, _Theory of Flight_
- 1933 – James Agee, _Permit Me Voyage_
- 1932 – Shirley Baker, _The Dark Hills Under_
- 1931 – Paul Engle, _Worn Earth_
- 1930 – Dorothy Belle Flanagan (aka Dorothy B. Hughes) – _Dark Certainty_
- 1929 – Louise Owen, _Virtuosa_
- 1928 – Henri Faust, _Half-Light and Overture_; Frances M. Frost, _Hemlock Wall_
- 1927 – Francis Claiborne Mason, _This Unchanging Mask_; Ted Olson, _A Stranger and Afraid_; Mildred Bowers, _Twist o’ Smoke_
- 1926 – Lindley Williams Hubbell, _Dark Pavilion_
- 1925 – Thomas Hornsby Ferril, _High Passage_; Eleanor Slater, _Quest_
- 1924 – Dorothy E. Reid, _Coach into Pumpkin_
- 1923 – Elizabeth Jessup Blake, _Up and Down_
- 1922 – Beatrice E. Harmon, _Mosaics_; Marion M. Boyd, _Silver Wands_; Amos Niven Wilder, _Battle-Retrospect_; Dean B. Lyman, Jr., _The Last Lutanist_
- 1921 – Paul Tanaquil, _Attitudes_; Barnard Raymund, _Hidden Waters_; Medora C. Addison, _Dreams and a Sword_; Harold Vinal, _White April_
- 1920 – Oscar Williams, _Golden Darkness_; Hervey Allen, _Wampum and Old Gold_; Viola C. White, _Horizons_; Theodore H. Banks, Jr., _Wild Geese_
- 1919 – Darl MacLeod Boyle, _Where Lilith Dances_; Thomas Caldecot Chubb, _The White God and Other Poems_; Alfred Raymond Bellinger, _Spires and Poplars_; David Osborne Hamilton, _Four Gardens_
- 1918 – John C. Farrar, _Forgotten Shrines_; Howard Buck, _The Tempering_

## Infobox (book series)

- **name**: Yale Series of Younger Poets
- **image**:
- **image caption**: Centennial logo
- **country**: United States
- **language**: English
- **discipline**: Poetry
- **publisher**: Yale University Press
- **pub date**: Annually since
- **number of books**: 114
- **oclc**: 1605127