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Pulitzer Prize for Poetry facts for kids

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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.

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." See Special Pulitzers for Letters.

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 several others won it more than once (below).

1920s

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 Benét
  • 1943: A Witness Tree by Robert Frost
  • 1944: Western Star by Stephen Vincent Benét
  • 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

1960s

1970s

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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 1992: Selected Poems by James Tate
  • 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 Laurie Sheck
  • 1998: Black Zodiac by Charles Wright
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • 2022: frank: sonnets by Diane Seuss

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, all male, have won two.

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

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Premio Pulitzer de Poesía para niños

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