Pulitzer Prize for Poetry facts for kids
The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry is a very important award given each year in the United States. It's one of several Pulitzer Prizes given for books, plays, and music. This special award for poetry started in 1922. It honors a great book of original poems written by an American author and published in the year before the award.
Before 1922, there were a couple of special awards for poetry in 1918 and 1919. These were called the Columbia University Poetry Prize and were supported by The Poetry Society.
Harriet Monroe, who started and edited Poetry magazine, wrote in 1922 that it was a nice surprise when Edwin Arlington Robinson won the first Pulitzer Prize for poetry. She mentioned that a previous award given to Sara Teasdale's Love Songs was sometimes confused with the Pulitzer, even though it was from the Poetry Society.
Since 1980, the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry has also announced finalists. Usually, there are two finalists besides the winner.
Contents
Poetry Prize Winners
The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry has been given out 92 times in its first 92 years, up to 2013. In 2008, two poets won, but in 1946, no award was given. Robert Frost won this prize four times, which is more than anyone else! Several other poets have won it more than once.
| Year | Poet | Title |
|---|---|---|
| 1918 | Sara Teasdale | Love Songs |
| 1919 | Carl Sandburg | Cornhuskers |
| 1919 | Margaret Widdemer | The Old Road to Paradise |
Winners from 1920s to 1970s
| Year | Poet | Title | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1922 | Edwin Arlington Robinson | Collected Poems | |
| 1923 | Edna St. Vincent Millay | "The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver," "A Few Figs from Thistles," and "Eight Sonnets" | |
| 1924 | Robert Frost | New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes | |
| 1925 | Edwin Arlington Robinson | The Man Who Died Twice | |
| 1926 | Amy Lowell | What's O'Clock | |
| 1927 | Leonora Speyer | Fiddler's Farewell | |
| 1928 | Edwin Arlington Robinson | Tristram | |
| 1929 | Stephen Vincent Benét | John Brown's Body | |
| 1930 | Conrad Aiken | Selected Poems | |
| 1931 | Robert Frost | Collected Poems | |
| 1932 | George Dillon | The Flowering Stone | |
| 1933 | Archibald MacLeish | Conquistador | |
| 1934 | Robert Hillyer | Collected Verse | |
| 1935 | Audrey Wurdemann | Bright Ambush | |
| 1936 | Robert P. T. Coffin | Strange Holiness | |
| 1937 | Robert Frost | A Further Range | |
| 1938 | Marya Zaturenska | Cold Morning Sky | |
| 1939 | John Gould Fletcher | Selected Poems | |
| 1940 | Mark Van Doren | Collected Poems | |
| 1941 | Leonard Bacon | Sunderland Capture | |
| 1942 | William Rose Benét | The Dust Which Is God | |
| 1943 | Robert Frost | A Witness Tree | |
| 1944 | Stephen Vincent Benét | Western Star | |
| 1945 | Karl Shapiro | V-Letter and Other Poems | |
| 1946 | No award given | ||
| 1947 | Robert Lowell | Lord Weary's Castle | |
| 1948 | W. H. Auden | The Age of Anxiety | |
| 1949 | Peter Viereck | Terror and Decorum | |
| 1950 | Gwendolyn Brooks | Annie Allen | |
| 1951 | Carl Sandburg | Complete Poems | |
| 1952 | Marianne Moore | Collected Poems | |
| 1953 | Archibald MacLeish | Collected Poems 1917-1952 | |
| 1954 | Theodore Roethke | The Waking | |
| 1955 | Wallace Stevens | Collected Poems | |
| 1956 | Elizabeth Bishop | Poems: North & South – A Cold Spring | |
| 1957 | Richard Wilbur | Things of This World | |
| 1958 | Robert Penn Warren | Promises: Poems 1954-1956 | |
| 1959 | Stanley Kunitz | Selected Poems 1928-1958 | |
| 1960 | W. D. Snodgrass | Heart's Needle | |
| 1961 | Phyllis McGinley | Times Three: Selected Verse From Three Decades | |
| 1962 | Alan Dugan | Poems | |
| 1963 | William Carlos Williams | Pictures from Brueghel | |
| 1964 | Louis Simpson | At the End of the Open Road | |
| 1965 | John Berryman | 77 Dream Songs | |
| 1966 | Richard Eberhart | Selected Poems | |
| 1967 | Anne Sexton | Live or Die | |
| 1968 | Anthony Hecht | The Hard Hours | |
| 1969 | George Oppen | Of Being Numerous | |
| 1970 | Richard Howard | Untitled Subjects | |
| 1971 | W. S. Merwin | The Carrier of Ladders | |
| 1972 | James Wright | Collected Poems | |
| 1973 | Maxine Kumin | Up Country | |
| 1974 | Robert Lowell | The Dolphin | |
| 1975 | Gary Snyder | Turtle Island | |
| 1976 | John Ashbery | Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror | |
| 1977 | James Merrill | Divine Comedies | |
| 1978 | Howard Nemerov | Collected Poems | |
| 1979 | Robert Penn Warren | Now and Then | |
Winners from the 1980s
| Year | Poet | Title | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | Donald Justice | Selected Poems | Winner | |
| Richard Hugo | Selected Poems | Finalist | ||
| Dave Smith | Goshawk, Antelope | Finalist | ||
| 1981 | James Schuyler | The Morning of the Poem | Winner | |
| Richard Hugo | The Right Madness on Skye | Finalist | ||
| Mark Strand | Selected Poems | Finalist | ||
| 1982 | Sylvia Plath | The Collected Poems | Winner | |
| Dave Smith | Dream Flights | Finalist | ||
| Charles Wright | The Southern Cross | Finalist | ||
| 1983 | Galway Kinnell | Selected Poems | Winner | |
| Jack Gilbert | Monolithos, Poems 1962 and 1982 | Finalist | ||
| Charles Wright | Country Music, Selected Early Poems | Finalist | ||
| 1984 | Mary Oliver | American Primitive | Winner | |
| John Engels | Weather-Fear: New and Selected Poems | Finalist | ||
| Josephine Miles | Collected Poems, 1930-1982 | Finalist | ||
| 1985 | Carolyn Kizer | Yin | Winner | |
| Robert Duncan | Ground Work | Finalist | ||
| Charles Wright | The Other Side of the River | Finalist | ||
| 1986 | Henry S. Taylor | The Flying Change | Winner | |
| Andrew Hudgins | Saints and Strangers | Finalist | ||
| Charles Simic | Selected Poems, 1963-1983 | Finalist | ||
| 1987 | Rita Dove | Thomas and Beulah | Winner | |
| Hayden Carruth | The Selected Poetry of Hayden Carruth | Finalist | ||
| Charles Simic | Unending Blues | Finalist | ||
| 1988 | William Meredith | Partial Accounts: New and Selected Poems | Winner | |
| Lucille Clifton | Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980 and Next: New Poems | Finalist | ||
| C.K. Williams | Flesh and Blood | Finalist | ||
| 1989 | Richard Wilbur | New and Collected Poems | Winner | |
| Donald Hall | The One Day | Finalist | ||
| Garrett Hongo | The River of Heaven | Finalist |
Winners from the 1990s
| Year | Poet | Title | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Charles Simic | The World Doesn't End | Winner | |
| Adrienne Rich | Time's Power | Finalist | ||
| Paul Zweig | Selected and Last Poems | Finalist | ||
| 1991 | Mona Van Duyn | Near Changes | Winner | |
| Anthony Hecht | The Transparent Man | Finalist | ||
| Gerald Stern | Leaving Another Kingdom | Finalist | ||
| 1992 | James Tate | Selected Poems | Winner | |
| Robert Creeley | Selected Poems | Finalist | ||
| Adrienne Rich | An Atlas of the Difficult World | Finalist | ||
| 1993 | Louise Glück | The Wild Iris | Winner | |
| John Ashbery | Hotel Lautreamont | Finalist | ||
| James Merrill | Selected Poems 1946-1985 | Finalist | ||
| 1994 | Yusef Komunyakaa | Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems | Winner | |
| Brenda Hillman | Bright Existence | Finalist | ||
| Allen Mandelbaum | The Metamorphoses of Ovid | Finalist | ||
| 1995 | Philip Levine | The Simple Truth | Winner | |
| Allen Ginsberg | Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems 1986-1992 | Finalist | ||
| Kenneth Koch | On the Great Atlantic Rainway: Selected Poems 1950-1988 and One Train | Finalist | ||
| 1996 | Jorie Graham | The Dream of the Unified Field | Winner | |
| Donald Justice | New and Selected Poems | Finalist | ||
| Charles Wright | Chickamauga | Finalist | ||
| 1997 | Lisel Mueller | Alive Together: New and Selected Poems | Winner | |
| Robert Pinsky | The Figured Wheel | Finalist | ||
| Laurie Sheck | The Willow Grove | Finalist | ||
| 1998 | Charles Wright | Black Zodiac | Winner | |
| Frank Bidart | Desire | Finalist | ||
| C.K. Williams | The Vigil | Finalist | ||
| 1999 | Mark Strand | Blizzard of One | Winner | |
| Alice Notley | Mysteries of Small Houses | Finalist | ||
| Frederick Seidel | Going Fast | Finalist |
Winners from the 2000s
| Year | Poet | Title | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | C. K. Williams | Repair | Winner | |
| Rodney Jones | Elegy for the Southern Drawl | Finalist | ||
| Adrienne Rich | Midnight Salvage: Poems 1995-1998 | Finalist | ||
| 2001 | Stephen Dunn | Different Hours | Winner | |
| Sydney Lea | Pursuit of a Wound | Finalist | ||
| Bruce Smith | The Other Lover | Finalist | ||
| 2002 | Carl Dennis | Practical Gods | Winner | |
| Louise Glück | The Seven Ages | Finalist | ||
| Franz Wright | The Beforelife | Finalist | ||
| 2003 | Paul Muldoon | Moy Sand and Gravel | Winner | |
| Frank Bidart | Music Like Dirt | Finalist | ||
| J. D. McClatchy | Hazmat | Finalist | ||
| 2004 | Franz Wright | Walking to Martha's Vineyard | Winner | |
| Henri Cole | Middle Earth | Finalist | ||
| Heather McHugh | Eyeshot | Finalist | ||
| 2005 | Ted Kooser | Delights & Shadows | Winner | |
| William Matthews | Search Party: Collected Poems | Finalist | ||
| Brigit Pegeen Kelly | The Orchard | Finalist | ||
| 2006 | Claudia Emerson | Late Wife | Winner | |
| Elizabeth Alexander | American Sublime | Finalist | ||
| Dean Young | Elegy on Toy Piano | Finalist | ||
| 2007 | Natasha Trethewey | Native Guard | Winner | |
| Martín Espada | The Republic of Poetry | Finalist | ||
| David Wojahn | Interrogation Palace: New & Selected Poems 1982-2004 | Finalist | ||
| 2008 | Robert Hass | Time and Materials | Winner | |
| Philip Schultz | Failure | Winner | ||
| Ellen Bryant Voigt | Messenger: New and Selected Poems, 1976-2006 | Finalist | ||
| 2009 | W. S. Merwin | The Shadow of Sirius | Winner | |
| Frank Bidart | Watching the Spring Festival | Finalist | ||
| Ruth Stone | What Love Comes To: New & Selected Poems | Finalist |
Winners from the 2010s
| Year | Poet | Title | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Rae Armantrout | Versed | Winner | |
| Angie Estes | Tryst | Finalist | ||
| Lucia Perillo | Inseminating the Elephant | Finalist | ||
| 2011 | Kay Ryan | The Best of It: New and Selected Poems | Winner | |
| Maurice Manning | The Common Man | Finalist | ||
| Jean Valentine | Break the Glass | Finalist | ||
| 2012 | Tracy K. Smith | Life on Mars | Winner | |
| Forrest Gander | Core Samples from the World | Finalist | ||
| Ron Padgett | How Long | Finalist | ||
| 2013 | Sharon Olds | Stag's Leap | Winner | |
| Jack Gilbert | Collected Poems | Finalist | ||
| Bruce Weigl | The Abundance of Nothing | Finalist | ||
| 2014 | Vijay Seshadri | 3 Sections | Winner | |
| Morri Creech | The Sleep of Reason | Finalist | ||
| Adrian Matejka | The Big Smoke | Finalist | ||
| 2015 | Gregory Pardlo | Digest | Winner | |
| Alan Shapiro | Reel to Reel | Finalist | ||
| Arthur Sze | Compass Rose | Finalist | ||
| 2016 | Peter Balakian | Ozone Journal | Winner | |
| Diane Seuss | Four-Legged Girl | Finalist | ||
| Elizabeth Willis | Alive: New and Selected Poems | Finalist | ||
| 2017 | Tyehimba Jess | Olio | Winner | |
| Campbell McGrath | XX | Finalist | ||
| Adrienne Rich | Collected Poems: 1950-2012 | Finalist | ||
| 2018 | Frank Bidart | Half-light: Collected Poems 1965–2016 | Winner | |
| Evie Shockley | semiautomatic, | Finalist | ||
| Patricia Smith | Incendiary Art | Finalist | ||
| 2019 | Forrest Gander | Be With | Winner | |
| Jos Charles | feeld | Finalist | ||
| A.E. Stallings | Like | Finalist |
Winners from the 2020s
| Year | Poet | Title | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Jericho Brown | The Tradition | Winner | |
| Dorianne Laux | Only as the Day Is Long: New and Selected Poems | Finalist | ||
| Mary Ruefle | Dunce | Finalist | ||
| 2021 | Natalie Diaz | Postcolonial Love Poem | Winner | |
| Mei-mei Berssenbrugge | A Treatise on Stars | Finalist | ||
| Carolyn Forché | In the Lateness of the World | Finalist | ||
| 2022 | Diane Seuss | frank: sonnets | Winner | |
| Will Alexander | Refractive Africa: Ballet of the Forgotten | Finalist | ||
| Mai Der Vang | Yellow Rain | Finalist | ||
| 2023 | Carl Phillips | Then the War: and Selected Poems, 2007–2020 | Winner | |
| Jay Hopler | Still Life | Finalist | ||
| dg nanouk okpik | Blood Snow | Finalist | ||
| 2024 | Brandon Som | Tripas: Poems | Winner | |
| Jorie Graham | To 2040 | Finalist | ||
| Robyn Schiff | Information Desk: An Epic | Finalist | ||
| 2025 | Marie Howe | New and Selected Poems | Winner | |
| Jennifer Chang | An Authentic Life | Finalist | ||
| Danez Smith | Bluff: Poems | Finalist |
Poets with Multiple Wins and Nominations
Some poets have won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry more than once. The special prizes from 1918 and 1919 are also counted here.
| Wins | Poet | Years |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | Robert Frost | 1924, 1931, 1937, 1943 |
| 3 | Edwin Arlington Robinson | 1922, 1925, 1928 |
| 2 | Stephen Vincent Benét | 1929, 1944 |
| Robert Lowell | 1947, 1974 | |
| Archibald MacLeish | 1933, 1953 | |
| William S. Merwin | 1971, 2009 | |
| Carl Sandburg | 1919, 1951 | |
| Robert Penn Warren | 1958, 1979 | |
| Richard Wilbur | 1957, 1989 |
Many poets have also been nominated for the award more than once. The years they won are shown in bold.
| Nominations | Poet | Years |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Charles Wright | 1982, 1983, 1985, 1996, 1998 |
| 4 | Frank Bidart | 1998, 2003, 2009, 2018 |
| Robert Frost | 1924, 1931, 1937, 1943 | |
| Adrienne Rich | 1990, 1992, 2000, 2017 | |
| 3 | Edwin Arlington Robinson | 1922, 1925, 1928 |
| Charles Simic | 1986, 1987, 1990 | |
| 2 | John Ashbery | 1976, 1993 |
| Stephen Vincent Benét | 1929, 1944 | |
| Forrest Gander | 2012, 2019 | |
| Jack Gilbert | 1983, 2013 | |
| Louise Glück | 1993, 2002 | |
| Anthony Hecht | 1968, 1991 | |
| Richard Hugo | 1980, 1981 | |
| Donald Justice | 1980, 1996 | |
| Robert Lowell | 1947, 1974 | |
| Archibald MacLeish | 1933, 1953 | |
| James Merril | 1977, 1993 | |
| William S. Merwin | 1971, 2009 | |
| Carl Sandburg | 1919, 1951 | |
| Diane Seuss | 2016, 2022 | |
| Mark Strand | 1981, 1999 | |
| Dave Smith | 1980, 1982 | |
| Robert Penn Warren | 1958, 1979 | |
| Richard Wilbur | 1957, 1989 | |
| C.K. Williams | 1988, 1998 | |
| Franz Wright | 2002, 2004 |
Robert Frost won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry four times between 1924 and 1943. Edwin Arlington Robinson won three prizes in the 1920s. Several other poets have won the award twice.
Carl Sandburg won one of the special poetry prizes in 1919 and then the main Poetry Pulitzer in 1951.
Only four women have been nominated multiple times: Adrienne Rich (4 times), and Louise Glück, Jorie Graham, and Diane Seuss (2 times each).
See also
In Spanish: Premio Pulitzer de Poesía para niños
- American poetry
- List of poetry awards
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Pulitzer Prize for Poetry Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.