Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

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Pulitzer Prize
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Joseph Pulitzer
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The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually for Letters, Drama, and Music. It was first presented in 1922, and is given for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author, published during the preceding calendar year.

Finalists have been announced since 1980, ordinarily two others beside the winner.[1]

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."[1] See Special Pulitzers for Letters.

  • 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.[1] Robert Frost won the prize four times and several others won it more than once (below).

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[]

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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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

Repeat winners[]

Robert Frost won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry four times from 1924 to 1943. Edwin Arlington Robinson won three prizes during the 1920s and several people have won two.

  • Edwin Arlington Robinson, 1922, 1925, 1928
  • Robert Frost, 1924, 1931, 1937, 1943
  • Stephen Vincent Benét, 1929, 1944
  • Archibald MacLeish, 1933, 1953
  • Robert Lowell, 1947, 1974
  • Richard Wilbur, 1957, 1989
  • Robert Penn Warren, 1958, 1979
  • William S. Merwin, 1971, 2009

Carl Sandburg won one of the special prizes for his poetry in 1919 and won the Poetry Pulitzer in 1951.

See also[]

  • American poetry
  • List of poetry awards

References[]

  1. ^ a b c "Poetry". The Pulitzer Prizes (pulitzer.org). Retrieved May 26, 2009.

External links[]

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