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 Benet
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 Benet
1943: A Witness Tree by Robert Frost
1944: Western Star by Stephen Vincent Benet
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 Gluck
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 Gluck
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 Martin 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 Forche
2022: frank: sonnets by Diane Seuss
Refractive Africa: Ballet of the Forgotten by Will Alexander
Yellow Rain by Mai Der Vang
References
Poetry