Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

The **Pulitzer Prize for Poetry** is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes given every year for _Books, Drama, and Music_. It was first given in 1922.

The prize is given "For a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author." That means it is given for an important book of original poetry. The book must be published during the calendar year before the prize is given.

Since 1980, two finalists (other important books) have been named at the same time as the winner.

## 1918 and 1919 special prizes

Before the establishment of the award, the 1918 and 1919 Pulitzer cycles included three Pulitzer Prize Special Citations and Awards (called at the time the Columbia University Poetry Prize) for poetry books funded by "a special grant from The Poetry Society."
- 1918: ***Love Songs*** by Sara Teasdale
- 1919: ***Cornhuskers*** by Carl Sandburg
- 1919: ***The Old Road to Paradise*** by Margaret Widdemer

## Winners

In its first 92 years to 2013, the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry was awarded 92 times. Two were given in 2008, none in 1946. Robert Frost won the prize four times and some other poets won it more than once).

### 1920s

- 1922: ***Collected Poems*** by Edwin Arlington Robinson
- 1923: ***"The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver"***, _A Few Figs from Thistles_, and "Eight Sonnets", by Edna St. Vincent Millay
- 1924: ***New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes*** by Robert Frost
- 1925: ***The Man Who Died Twice*** by Edwin Arlington Robinson
- 1926: ***What's O'Clock*** by Amy Lowell
- 1927: ***Fiddler's Farewell*** by Leonora Speyer
- 1928: ***Tristram*** by Edwin Arlington Robinson
- 1929: ***John Brown's Body*** by Stephen Vincent Benét

### 1930s

- 1930: ***Selected Poems*** by Conrad Aiken
- 1931: ***Collected Poems*** by Robert Frost
- 1932: ***The Flowering Stone*** by George Dillon
- 1933: ***Conquistador*** by Archibald MacLeish
- 1934: ***Collected Verse*** by Robert Hillyer
- 1935: ***Bright Ambush*** by Audrey Wurdemann
- 1936: ***Strange Holiness*** by Robert P. T. Coffin
- 1937: ***A Further Range*** by Robert Frost
- 1938: ***Cold Morning Sky*** by Marya Zaturenska
- 1939: ***Selected Poems*** by John Gould Fletcher

### 1940s

- 1940: ***Collected Poems*** by Mark Van Doren
- 1941: ***Sunderland Capture*** by Leonard Bacon
- 1942: ***The Dust Which Is God*** by William Rose Benét
- 1943: ***A Witness Tree*** by Robert Frost
- 1944: ***Western Star*** by Stephen Vincent Benét
- 1945: ***V-Letter and Other Poems*** by Karl Shapiro
- 1946: no award given
- 1947: ***Lord Weary's Castle*** by Robert Lowell
- 1948: ***The Age of Anxiety*** by W. H. Auden
- 1949: ***Terror and Decorum*** by Peter Viereck

### 1950s

- 1950: ***Annie Allen*** by Gwendolyn Brooks
- 1951: ***Complete Poems*** by Carl Sandburg
- 1952: ***Collected Poems*** by Marianne Moore
- 1953: ***Collected Poems 1917-1952*** by Archibald MacLeish
- 1954: ***The Waking*** by Theodore Roethke
- 1955: ***Collected Poems*** by Wallace Stevens
- 1956: ***Poems: North & South — A Cold Spring*** by Elizabeth Bishop
- 1957: ***Things of This World*** by Richard Wilbur
- 1958: ***Promises: Poems 1954-1956*** by Robert Penn Warren
- 1959: ***Selected Poems 1928-1958*** by Stanley Kunitz

### 1960s

- 1960: ***Heart's Needle*** by W. D. Snodgrass
- 1961: ***Times Three: Selected Verse From Three Decades*** by Phyllis McGinley
- 1962: ***Poems*** by Alan Dugan
- 1963: ***Pictures from Brueghel*** by William Carlos Williams
- 1964: ***At The End Of The Open Road*** by Louis Simpson
- 1965: ***77 Dream Songs*** by John Berryman
- 1966: ***Selected Poems*** by Richard Eberhart
- 1967: ***Live or Die*** by Anne Sexton
- 1968: ***The Hard Hours*** by Anthony Hecht
- 1969: ***Of Being Numerous*** by George Oppen

### 1970s

- 1970: ***Untitled Subjects*** by Richard Howard
- 1971: ***The Carrier of Ladders*** by W. S. Merwin
- 1972: ***Collected Poems*** by James Wright
- 1973: ***Up Country*** by Maxine Kumin
- 1974: ***The Dolphin*** by Robert Lowell
- 1975: ***Turtle Island*** by Gary Snyder
- 1976: ***Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror*** by John Ashbery
- 1977: ***Divine Comedies*** by James Merrill
- 1978: ***Collected Poems*** by Howard Nemerov
- 1979: ***Now and Then*** by Robert Penn Warren

### 1980s

Indented entries are finalists after each year's winner.
- 1980: ***Selected Poems*** by Donald Justice
    - _Goshawk, Antelope_ by Dave Smith
    - _Selected Poems_ by Richard Hugo
- 1981: ***The Morning of the Poem*** by James Schuyler
    - _Selected Poems_ by Mark Strand
    - _The Right Madness on Skye_ by Richard Hugo
- 1982: ***The Collected Poems*** by Sylvia Plath
    - _Dream Flights_ by Dave Smith
    - _The Southern Cross_ by Charles Wright
- 1983: ***Selected Poems*** by Galway Kinnell
    - _Country Music, Selected Early Poems_ by Charles Wright
    - _Monolithos, Poems 1962 and 1982_ by Jack Gilbert
- 1984: ***American Primitive*** by Mary Oliver
    - _Collected Poems, 1930-1982_ by Josephine Miles
    - _Weather-Fear: New and Selected Poems_ by John Engels
- 1985: ***Yin*** by Carolyn Kizer
    - _Ground Work_ by Robert Duncan
    - _The Other Side of the River_ by Charles Wright
- 1986: ***The Flying Change*** by Henry S. Taylor
    - _Saints and Strangers_ by Andrew Hudgins
    - _Selected Poems, 1963-1983_ by Charles Simic
- 1987: ***Thomas and Beulah*** by Rita Dove
    - _The Selected Poetry of Hayden Carruth_ by Hayden Carruth
    - _Unending Blues_ by Charles Simic
- 1988: ***Partial Accounts: New and Selected Poems*** by William Meredith
    - _Flesh and Blood_ by C.K. Williams
    - _Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980_ and _Next: New Poems_ by Lucille Clifton
- 1989: ***New and Collected Poems*** by Richard Wilbur
    - _The One Day_ by Donald Hall
    - _The River of Heaven_ by Garrett Hongo

### 1990s

Indented entries are finalists after each year's winner.

- 1990: ***The World Doesn't End*** by Charles Simic
    - _Selected and Last Poems_ by Paul Zweig
    - _Time's Power_ by Adrienne Rich
- 1991: ***Near Changes*** by Mona Van Duyn
    - _Leaving Another Kingdom_ by Gerald Stern
    - _The Transparent Man_ by Anthony Hecht
- 1992: ***Selected Poems*** by James Tate
    - _An Atlas of the Difficult World_ by Adrienne Rich
    - _Selected Poems_ by Robert Creeley
- 1993: ***The Wild Iris*** by Louise Glück
    - _Hotel Lautreamont_ by John Ashbery
    - _Selected Poems 1946-1985_ by James Merrill
- 1994: ***Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems*** by Yusef Komunyakaa
    - _Bright Existence_ by Brenda Hillman
    - _The Metamorphoses of Ovid_ by Allen Mandelbaum
- 1995: ***The Simple Truth*** by Philip Levine
    - _Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems 1986-1992_ by Allen Ginsberg
    - _On The Great Atlantic Rainway: Selected Poems 1950-1988_ and _One Train_ by Kenneth Koch
- 1996: ***The Dream of the Unified Field*** by Jorie Graham
    - _Chickamauga_ by Charles Wright
    - _New and Selected Poems_ by Donald Justice
- 1997: ***Alive Together: New and Selected Poems*** by Lisel Mueller
    - _The Figured Wheel_ by Robert Pinsky
    - _The Willow Grove_ by Laurie Sheck
- 1998: ***Black Zodiac*** by Charles Wright
    - _Desire_ by Frank Bidart
    - _The Vigil_ by C.K. Williams
- 1999: ***Blizzard of One*** by Mark Strand
    - _Going Fast_ by Frederick Seidel
    - _Mysteries of Small Houses_ by Alice Notley

### 2000s

Indented entries are finalists after each year's winner. Two prizes were awarded in 2008.

- 2000: ***Repair*** by C. K. Williams
    - _Elegy for the Southern Drawl_ by Rodney Jones
    - _Midnight Salvage: Poems 1995-1998_ by Adrienne Rich
- 2001: ***Different Hours*** by Stephen Dunn
    - _Pursuit of a Wound_ by Sydney Lea
    - _The Other Lover_ by Bruce Smith
- 2002: ***Practical Gods*** by Carl Dennis
    - _The Beforelife_ by Franz Wright
    - _The Seven Ages_ by Louise Glück
- 2003: ***Moy Sand and Gravel*** by Paul Muldoon
    - _Hazmat_ by J. D. McClatchy
    - _Music Like Dirt_ by Frank Bidart
- 2004: ***Walking to Martha's Vineyard*** by Franz Wright
    - _Eyeshot_ by Heather McHugh
    - _Middle Earth_ by Henri Cole
- 2005: ***Delights & Shadows*** by Ted Kooser
    - _Search Party: Collected Poems_ by William Matthews
    - _The Orchard_ by Brigit Pegeen Kelly
- 2006: ***Late Wife*** by Claudia Emerson
    - _American Sublime_ by Elizabeth Alexander
    - _Elegy on Toy Piano_ by Dean Young
- 2007: ***Native Guard*** by Natasha Trethewey
    - _Interrogation Palace: New & Selected Poems 1982-2004_ by David Wojahn
    - _The Republic of Poetry_ by Martín Espada
- 2008: ***Time and Materials*** by Robert Hass and ***Failure*** by Philip Schultz
    - _Messenger: New and Selected Poems, 1976-2006_ by Ellen Bryant Voigt
- 2009: ***The Shadow of Sirius*** by W. S. Merwin
    - _Watching the Spring Festival_ by Frank Bidart
    - _What Love Comes To: New & Selected Poems_ by Ruth Stone

### 2010s

Indented entries are finalists after each year's winner.

- 2010: ***Versed*** by Rae Armantrout
    - _Inseminating the Elephant_ by Lucia Perillo
    - _Tryst_ by Angie Estes
- 2011: ***The Best of It: New and Selected Poems*** by Kay Ryan
    - _Break the Glass_ by Jean Valentine
    - _The Common Man_ by Maurice Manning
- 2012: ***Life on Mars*** by Tracy K. Smith
    - _Core Samples from the World_ by Forrest Gander
    - _How Long_ by Ron Padgett
- 2013: ***Stag's Leap*** by Sharon Olds
    - _Collected Poems_ by Jack Gilbert
    - _The Abundance of Nothing_ by Bruce Weigl
- 2014: ***3 Sections*** by Vijay Seshadri
    - _The Big Smoke_ by Adrian Matejka
    - _The Sleep of Reason_ by Morri Creech
- 2015: ***Digest*** by Gregory Pardlo
    - _Compass Rose_ by Arthur Sze
    - _Reel to Reel_ by Alan Shapiro
- 2016: ***Ozone Journal*** by Peter Balakian
    - _Alive: New and Selected Poems_ by Elizabeth Willis
    - _Four-Legged Girl_ by Diane Seuss
- 2017: ***Olio*** by Tyehimba Jess
    - _Collected Poems: 1950-2012_ by Adrienne Rich
    - _XX_ by Campbell McGrath
- 2018: ***Half-light: Collected Poems 1965–2016*** by Frank Bidart
    - _Incendiary Art_, by Patricia Smith
    - _semiautomatic_, by Evie Shockley
- 2019: ***Be With*** by Forrest Gander
    - _feeld_ by Jos Charles
    - _Like_ by A.E. Stallings

### 2020s

Indented entries are finalists after each year's winner.

- 2020: ***The Tradition*** by Jericho Brown
    - _Dunce_ by Mary Ruefle
    - _Only as the Day Is Long: New and Selected Poems_ by Dorianne Laux
- 2021: ***Postcolonial Love Poem*** by Natalie Diaz
    - _A Treatise on Stars_ by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge
    - _In the Lateness of the World_ by Carolyn Forché
- 2022: ***frank: sonnets*** by Diane Seuss
    - _Refractive Africa: Ballet of the Forgotten_ by Will Alexander
    - _Yellow Rain_ by Mai Der Vang