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.
 

## 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*

## References