Pulitzer Prize: poetry

In his will, publisher Joseph Pulitzer provided funding to create the Pulitzer Prize. In addition to journalism prizes, Pulitzers are awarded annually for fiction, general nonfiction, history, biography, memoir/autobiography, poetry, drama, and music. The prize for poetry has been awarded every year since 1918, with the exception of 1920, 1921 and 1946.

2024: Tripas: Poems, by Brandom Som

2023: Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007-2020, by Carl Phillips

2022: frank: sonnets, by Diane Seuss

2021: Postcolonial Love Poem, by Natalie Diaz

2020: The Tradition, by Jericho Brown

2019: Be With, by Forrest Gander

2018: Half-light: Collected Poems 1965-2016, by Frank Bidart

2017: Olio, by Tyehimba Jess

2016: Ozone Journal, by Peter Balakian

2015: Digest, by Gregory Pardlo

2014: 3 Sections, by Vijay Seshadri

2013: Stag’s Leap, by Sharon Olds

2012: Life on Mars, by Tracy K. Smith

2011: The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, by Kay Ryan

2010: Versed, by Rae Armantrout

2009: The Shadow of Sirius, by W.S. Merlin

2008: Failure, by Philip Schulz; Time and Materials, by Robert Hass

2007: Native Guard, by Natasha Trethewey

2006: Late Wife, by Claudia Emerson

2005: Delights & Shadows, by Ted Kooser

2004: Walking to Martha’s Vineyard, by Franz Wright

2003: Moy Sand and Gravel, by Paul Muldoon

2002: Practical Gods, by Carl Dennis

2001: Different Hours, by Stephen Dunn

2000: Repair, by C.K. Williams

1999: Blizzard of One, by Mark Strand

1998: Black Zodiac, by Charles Wright

1997: Alive Together: New and Selected Poems, by Lisel Mueller

1996: The Dream of the Unified Field, by Jorie Graham

1995: The Simple Truth, by Philip Levine

1994: Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems, by Yusef Komunyakaa

1993: The Wild Iris, by Louise Glück

1992: Selected Poems, by James Tate

1991: New Changes, by Mona Van Duyn

1990: The World Doesn’t End, by Charles Simic

1989: New and Collected Poems, by Richard Wilbur

1988: Partial Accounts: New and Selected Poems, by William Meredith

1987: Thomas and Beulah, by Rita Dove

1986: The Flying Change, by Henry Taylor

1985: Yin, by Carolyn Kizer

1984: American Primitive, by Mary Oliver

1983: Selected Poems, by Galway Kinyell

1982: The Collected Poems, by Sylvua Plath

1981: The Morning of the Poem, by James Schuyler

1980: Selected Poems, by Donald Justice

1979: Now and Then, by Robert Penn Warren

1978: Collected Poems, by Howard Nemerov

1977: Divine Comedies, by James Merrill

1976: Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, by John Ashbery

1975: Turtle Island, by Gary Snyder

1974: The Dolphin, by Robert Lowell

1973: Up Country, by Maxine Kumin

1972: Collected Poems, by James Wright

1971: The Carrier of Ladders, by William S. Merwin

1970: Untitled Subjects, by Richard Howard

1969: Of Being Numerous, by George Open

1968: The Hard Hours, by Anthony Hecht

1967: Live or Die, by Anne Sexton

1966: Selected Poems, by Richard Eberhart

1965: 77 Dream Songs, by John Berryman

1964: At The End Of The Open Road, by Louis Simpson

1963: Pictures from Brueghel, by William Carlos Williams

1962: Poems, by Alan Dugan

1961: Times Three: Selected Verse From Three Decades, by Phyllis McGinley

1960: Heart’s Needle, by W.D. Snodgrass

1959: Selected Poems 1928-1958, by Stanley Kunitz

1958: Promises: Poems 1954-1956, by Robert Penn Warren

1957: Things of This World, by Richard Wilbur

1956: Poems: North & South - A Cold Spring, by Elizabeth Bishop

1955: Collected Poems, by Wallace Stevens

1954: The Waking, by Theodore Roethke

1953: Collected Poems 1917-1952, by Archibald MacLeish

1952: Collected Poems, by Marianne Moore

1951: Complete Poems, by Carl Sandburg

1950: Annie Allen, by Gwendolyn Brooks

1949: Terror and Decorum, by Peter Viereck

1948: The Age of Anxiety, by W.H. Auden

1947: Lord Weary’s Castle, by Robert Lowell

1945: V-Letter and Other Poems, by Karl Shapiro

1944: Western Star, by Stephen Vincent Benet

1943: A Witness Tree, by Robert Frost

1942: The Dust Which Is God, by William Rose Benet

1941: Sunderland Capture, by Leonard Bacon

1940: Collected Poems, by Mark Van Doren

1939: Selected Poems, by John Gould Fletcher

1938: Cold Morning Sky, by Marya Zaturenska

1937: A Further Range, by Robert Frost

1936: Strange Holiness, by Robert P. Tristram

1935: Bright Ambush, by Audrey Wurdemann

1934: Collected Verse, by Robert Hillyer

1933: Conquistador, by Archibald MacLeish

1932: The Flowering Stone, by George Dillon

1931: Collected Poems, by Robert Frost

1930: Selected Poems, by Conrad Aiken

1929: John Browns Body, by Stephen Vincent Benet

1928: Tristram, by Edwin Arlington Robinson

1927: Fiddler’s Farewell, by Leonora Speyer

1926: What’s O’Clock, by Amy Lowell

1925: The Man Who Died Twice, by Edwin Arlington Robinson

1924: New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes, by Robert Frost

1923: The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver: A Few Figs from Thistles: Eight Sonnets in American Poetry, 1922. A Miscellany, by Edna St. Vincent Millay

1922: Collected Poems, by Edwin Arlington Robinson

1919: Corn Huskers, by Carl Sandburg

1918: Love Songs, by Sara Teasdale