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, The 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

References

Category:Literary awards