Prizes and Awards
Over the past 100 years, Bread Loaf has welcomed many notable writers, including MacArthur Fellows, U.S. poets laureate, and recipients of the Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, and more.
By The Numbers
5 Nobel Prizes for Literature
43 Pulitzer Prizes
41 Awards from PEN America
29 National Book Critics’ Circle Awards
38 National Book Awards
13 Kingsley Tufts Prizes
8 Kate Tufts Prizes
60 Academy of American Poets Prizes
28 Discovery/The Nation Awards
TOTAL 393 AWARDS
18 Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation Awards
5 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
20 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards
30 Before Columbus Foundation American Book Awards
25 MacArthur “Genius” Grants
19 United States Poets Laureate
Nobel Prize for Literature
-
1980 Czeslaw Milosz
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1987 Joseph Brodsky
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1990 Octavio Paz
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1993 Toni Morrison
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2020 Louise Glück
Pulitzer Prize
For the Novel
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1923 Willa Cather, One of Ours
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1966 Katherine Anne Porter, Collected Stories
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1972 Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose
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1973 Eudora Welty, The Optimist’s Daughter
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1988 Toni Morrison, Beloved
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2000 Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies
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2011 Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
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2023 Hernan Diaz, Trust
For Poetry
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1922 Edwin Arlington Robinson, Collected Poems
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1924 Robert Frost, New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes
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1929 Stephen Vincent Benet, John Brown’s Body
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1931 Robert Frost, Collected Poems
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1933 Archibald MacLeish, Conquistador
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1937 Robert Frost, A Further Range
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1944 Stephen Vincent Benet, Western Star
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1948 W. H. Auden, The Age of Anxiety: a Baroque Eclogue
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1953 Archibald MacLeish, Collected Poems, 1917-1952
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1954 Theodore Roethke, The Waking: Poems
-
1960 W. D. Snodgrass, Heart’s Needle
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1963 William Carlos Williams, Pictures from Breughel and Other Poems
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1967 Anne Sexton, Live or Die
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1968 Anthony Hecht, The Hard Hours
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1973 Maxine Kumin, Up Country: Poems of New England, New and Selected
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1978 Howard Nemerov, Collected Poems
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1980 Donald Justice, Selected Poems
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1983 Galway Kinnell, Selected Poems
-
1988 William Meredith, Partial Accounts: New and Selected Poems
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1990 Charles Simic, The World Doesn’t End: Prose Poems
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1993 Louise Gluck, The Wild Iris
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1994 Yusef Komunyakaa, Neon Vernacular: New and Selected
-
1995 Philip Levine, The Simple Truth
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1996 Jorie Graham, The Dream of the Unified Field
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1999 Mark Strand, Blizzard of One
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2000 C. K. Williams, Repair
-
2003 Paul Muldoon, Moy Sand and Gravel
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2007 Natasha Trethewey, Native Guard
-
2012 Tracy K. Smith, Life on Mars
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2015 Gregory Pardlo, Digest
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2018 Frank Bidart, Half-light: Collected Poems
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2019 Forrest Gander, Be With
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2020 Jericho Brown, The Tradition
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2021 Natalie Diaz, Postcolonial Love Poem
-
2023 Carl Phillips, Then the War: And Selected Poems 2007-2020
PEN America
Debut Short Story Collection
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Monique Truong, The Book of Salt
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Danielle Evans, Before You Suffocate…
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Mia Alvar, In the Country: Stories
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Rion Amilcar Scott. Insurrections: Stories
Robert J Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers
-
Crystal Hana Ki, “Solee” Southern Review
-
Maud Streep, “The Crazies” One Story
PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel
-
Chang-rae Lee, Native Speaker
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Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies
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Akhil Sharma, An Obedient Father
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Yiyun Li, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
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Brando Skyhorse, The Madonnas of Echo Park
PEN/Jean Stein Award
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Yiyun Li, Where Reasons End
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Ross Gay, Be Holding: a Poem
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Percival Everett, Dr. No
PEN Open Book Award
-
Kevin Young, The Grey Album
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Nina McConigley, Cowboys and East Indians
-
Rick Barot, Chord
PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry Collection
-
C. K. Williams 1998
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Heather McHugh, 2000
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Robert Pinsky, 2004
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Frank Bidart, 2014
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Victoria Chang, 2021
PEN Award for Poetry in Translation
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David Hinton, The Selected Poems of wang Wei
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Karen Emmerich & Edmund Keeley, Diaries of Exile
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Jennifer Grotz & Piotr Sommer, Everything I Don’t Know
PEN Translation Prize
-
Peter Constantine, Six Early Stories
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Bill Johnston, Stone Upon Stone
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Allison Markin Powell, The Ten Loves of Nishino
PEN/Ralph Manheim Award for Translation
Suzanne Jill Levine
PEN/Malamud
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William Maxwell, 1995
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Joyce Carol Oates, 1996
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Richard Bausch, 2004
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Lorrie Moore, 2005
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Peter Ho Davies, 2008
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Amy Hempel, 2009
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Jhumpa Lahiri, 2017
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Amina Gautier, 2018
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Charles Baxter, 2021
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Yiyun Li, 2022
PEN/Faulkner
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Rabih Alameddine, The Wrong End of the Telescope, 2022
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Yiyun Li, The Book of Goose, 2023
National Book Critics’ Circle
Award in Fiction
-
1976, John Gardner, October Light
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1977, Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon
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1988, Bharati Mukherjee, The Middleman and Other Stories
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1995, Stanley Elkin, Mrs. Ted Bliss
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2010, Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad
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2021, Honoree Fanonne Jeffers, The Love Songs of WEB Du Bois
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2023, Lorrie Moore, I Am Homeless if This is Not My Home
Award in Nonfiction
-
1986, Barry Lopez, Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape
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2000, Ted Conover, Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing
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2023, Safiya Sinclair, How to Say Babylon: A Memoir
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1986, Joseph Brodsky, Less Than One: Selected Essays
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2003, Rebecca Solnit, River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild
-
West
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2009, Eula Biss, Notes from No Man’s Land: American Essays
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2021, Melissa Febos, Girlhood
Award in Poetry
-
1979, Phillip Levine, Ashes: Poems New and Old and 7 Years from Somewhere
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1981, A. R. Ammons, A Coast of Trees
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1985, Louise Gluck, The Triumph of Achilles
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1986, Edward Hirsch, Wild Gratitude
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1987, CK Williams, Flesh and Blood
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1988, Donald Hall, The One Day
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1995, William Matthews, Time and Money
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2004, Adrienne Rich, The School Among the Ruins
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2007, Mary Jo Bang, Elegy
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2010, C D Wright, One with Others
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2013, Frank Bidart, Metaphysical Dog
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2015, Ross Gay, Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude
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2016, Ishion Hutchinson, House of Lords and Commons
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2020, Francine j. harris, Here Is the Sweet Hand
John Leonard Prize for First Book
2015 Kirstin Valdez Quade, Night at the Fiestas
National Book Awards
For Fiction
-
1953, Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
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1966, Katherine Anne Porter, Collected Stories
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1967, Bernard Malamud, The Fixer ??
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1970, Joyce Carol Oates, Them
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1972, Flannery O’Connor The Complete Stories
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1977, Wallace Stegner, The Spectator Bird
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1979, Tim O’Brien, Going After Cacciato
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1980, John Irving, The World According to Garp
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1982, William Maxwell, So Long, See You Tomorrow
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1983, Eudora Welty, The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty
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1983, Gloria Naylor, The Women of Brewster Place
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1996, Andrea Barrett, Ship Fever and Other Stories
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2018, Sigrid Nunez, The Friend
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2019, Susan Choi, Trust Exercise
For Nonfiction
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1953, Bernard de Voto, The Course of Empire
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1986, Barry Hannah, Arctic Dreams
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2005, Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking
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1980, Julia Child, Julia Child and More Company
For Poetry
-
1950, William Carlos Williams, Paterson
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1953, Archibald MacLeish, Collected Poems
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1956, W. H. Auden, The Shield of Achilles
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1959, Theodore Roethke, Words for the Wind
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1965, Theodore Roethke, The Far Field
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1973, A. R. Ammons, Collected Poems, 1951-1971
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1974, Adrienne Rich, Diving into the Wreck
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1978, Howard Nemerov, Collected Poems
-
1980, Philip Levine, Ashes: Poems New and Old
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1983, Galway Kinnell, Selected Poems
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1991, Phillip Levine, What Work Is
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1993, A. R. Ammons, Garbage
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2003, C. K. Williams, The Singing
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2010, Terrance Hayes, Lighthead
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2011, Nikky Finney, Head Off & Split
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2013, Mary Szybist, Incarnadine
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2014, Louise Gluck, Faithful and Virtuous Night
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2017, Frank Bidart, Half-light: Collected Poems
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2019, Arthur Sze, Sight Lines
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2022, John Keene, Punks: New and Selected Poems
For Translation
2023, Bruna Dantas Lobato Stenio Gardel’s The Words That Remain
Kingsley Tufts Award for Poetry
-
1994, Yusef Komunyakaa, Neon Vernacular
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1996, Deborah Digges, Rough Music
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2001, Alan Shapiro, The Dead Alive and Busy
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2002, Carl Phillips, The Tether
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2003, Linda Gregerson, Waterborne
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2008, Tom Sleigh, Space Walk
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2009, Matthea Harvey, Modern Life
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2013, Marianne Boruch, The Book of Hours
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2016, Ross Gay, Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude
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2017, Vievee Francis, Forest Primeval
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2021, John Murillo, Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry
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2023, Roger Reeves, Best Barbarian
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2024, Paisley Rekdal, West: A Translation
Kate Tufts Award for First Book of Poetry
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Barbara Ras, Bite Every Sorrow
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Terrance Hayes, Muscular Music
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Cate Marvin, World’s Tallest Disaster
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Patrick Phillips, Chattahoochee
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Yona Harvey, Hemming the Water
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Phillip B. Williams, Thief in the Interior
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Diana Khoi Nguyen, Ghost Of
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Robert Wood Lynn, Mothman Apologia
Academy of American Poets
Wallace Stevens Prize
-
1996, Adrienne Rich
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1997, Anthony Hecht
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1998, A. R. Ammons
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2000, Frank Bidart
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2004, Mark Strand
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2007, Charles Simic
-
2008, Louise Gluck
-
2010, Galway Kinnell
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2011, Yusef Komunyakaa
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2013, Phillip Levine
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2017, Jorie Graham
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2020, Nikky Finney
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2021, Toi Derricotte
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2023, Afaa Michael Weaver
First Book Prize
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1981, Alberto Rios, Whispering to Fool the Wind
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1997, Barbara Ras, Bite Every Sorrow
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2002, Suji Kwock Kim, Notes from the Divided Country
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2004, Geri Doran, Resin
Laughlin Prize for Second Book
-
1955, Donald Hall
-
1959, Donald Justice, The Summer Anniversaries
-
1969, Marvin Bell, A Probable Volume of Dreams
-
1981, Carolyn Forché The Country Between Us
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1985, Cornelius Eady, Victims of the Latest Dance Craze
-
1987, Garrett Hongo, The River of Heaven
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1994, Brigit Pegeen Kelly, Song
-
1996, David Rivard, Wise Poison
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1997, Tony Hoagland, Donkey Gospel
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2002, Karen Volkman, Spar
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2006, Tracy K. Smith, Duende
-
2007, Brenda Shaughnessy, Human Dark with Sugar
-
2010, Michael Dickman, Flies
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2012, Catherine Barnett, The Game of Boxes
-
2017, Sam Sax, Bury It
-
2018, Geffrey Davis, Night Angler
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2020, Chet’la Sebree, Field Study
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2024, Michelle Penaloza, All the Words I Can Remember Are Poems
Fellowship Prize
-
1953, Robert Frost
-
1956, William Carlos Williams
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1966, Archibald MacLeish
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1969, Anthony Hecht
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1970, Howard Nemerov
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1975, Robert Hayden
-
1979, May Swenson
-
1980, Mark Strand
-
1988, Donald Justice
-
1990, William Meredith,
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1992, Adrienne Rich
-
1998, Charles Simic
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2001, Ellen Bryant Voigt
-
2004, Jane Hirshfield
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2006, Carl Phillips
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2008, Brigit Pegeen Kelly
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2013, Carolyn Forché
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2014, Tracy K. Smith
-
2016, Natasha Trethewey
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2019, Ilya Kaminsky
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2020, Carmen Gimenez
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2021, Camille T. Dungy
-
2022, Jericho Brown
-
2023, Major Jackson
Discovery/The Nation Prize
-
1965, Mark Strand
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1975, David St. John
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1976, Ellen Bryant Voigt
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1981, Michael Collier
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1981, Garrett Hongo
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1986, Brigit Pegeen Kelly
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1991, Joshua Weiner
-
1995: Mary Jo Bang
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1995, James Longenbach
-
1999, Miranda Field
-
1999, Nick Flynn
-
2000, Anthony Deaton
-
2000, Andrew Feld
-
2000, Sue Kwock Kim
-
2001, Monica Ferrell
-
2003, Patrick Phillips
-
2006, Nicky Beer
-
2007, Paula Bohince
-
2007, Darcie Dennigan
-
2009, Bridget Lowe
-
2011, Ansel Elkins
-
2011, Solmaz Sharif
-
2013, Erika L. Sanchez
-
2014, Justin Boening
-
2015, Jenny George
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2017, Diana Khoi Nguyen
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2018, Paul Tran
-
2019, Omotara James
Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation
Award in Debut Fiction
-
Tayari Jones, Leaving Atlanta
-
Aminatta Forma, Ancestor Stones
-
Ladee Hubbard, Africaville
Award in Fiction
-
Percival Everett, Erasure
-
Mat Johnson, Hunting in Harlem
-
Percival Everett, I Am Not Sidney Poitier
-
Danielle Evans, Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self
-
Laila Lalami, The Moor’s Account
-
James Hannaham, Delicious Foods
-
Percival Everett, Telephone
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Percival Everett, The Trees
-
Elizabeth Nunez, Not For Everyday Use
-
Ross Gay, Inciting Joy (memoir)
Award in Poetry
-
Amaud Jamaul Johnson, Darktown Follies
-
Vievee Francis, Forest Primeval
-
Donika Kelly, Bestiary
-
Terrance Hayes, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin
North Star Award
Natasha Trethewey, 2013
Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
-
2008, Hannah Tinti, The Good Thief
-
2014, Tiphanie Yanique, Land of Love and Drowning
-
2016, Kia Corthron, The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter
-
2019, DeShawn Charles Winslow, In West Mills
-
2021, Kirstin Valdez Quade, The Five Wounds
Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards
For Fiction
-
1988, Toni Morrison, Beloved
-
1994, Judith Ortiz Cofer, The Latin Deli
-
1995: Reginald Gibbons, Sweetbitter
-
1996, Madison Smartt Bell, All Souls’ Rising
-
2000, Chang-rae Lee, A Gesture Life
-
2003, Reetika Vazirani, World Hotel
-
2014, Anthony Marra, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena ???
-
2014, Adrian Matejka, The Big Smoke
-
2017, Peter Ho Davies, The Fortunes
-
2022, Percival Everett, The Trees
-
2023, Lan Samantha Chang, The Family Chao
For Poetry
-
2015, Jericho Brown, The New Testament
-
2019, Tracy K. Smith, Wade in the Water
-
2020, Ilya Kaminsky, Deaf Republic
-
2021, Victoria Chang, Obit
-
2022, Donika Kelly, The Renunciations
-
2024, Monica Youn, From From
For Nonfiction
-
2005, A. Van Jordan, Macnolia
-
2018, Kevin Young: Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News
-
2021, Natasha Trethewey, Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir
Before Columbus Foundation American Book Awards
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1984, Mary Sarton
-
1988, Toni Morrison
-
1995, Chang-rae Lee
-
1999, Gloria Naylor
-
1999, Josip Novakovich
-
1999, Luis Albert Urrea
-
2000, Janisse Ray
-
2001, Elizabeth Nunez
-
2007, Reyna Grande
-
2009, Jericho Brown, Please
-
2010, Victor LaValle, The Big Machine
-
2010, Bich Minh Nguyen, Short Girls
-
2011, Camille Dungy, Suck on the Marrow
-
2011, Carmen Gimenez Smith, Bring Down the Little Birds
-
2012, Kevin Young: Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels
-
2013, Natalie Diaz, When My Brother Was an Aztec
-
2014, Emily Raboteau, Searching for Zion
-
2015, Laila Lalami, The Moor’s Account
-
2016, Mat Johnson, Loving Day
-
2016, John Keene, Counternarratives
-
2017, Patrick Phillips, Blood at the Root
-
2017, Solmaz Sharif, Look
-
2018, Victor LaValle, The Changeling
-
2020, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Felon: Poems
-
2020, De’Shawn Charles Winslow, In West Mills
-
2021, Carolyn Forché, In the Lateness of the World
-
2022, Philip B. Williams, Mutiny
-
2023, Javier Zamora, Solito: A Memoir
-
2024, Roger Reeves, Dark Days: Fugitive Essays
-
2024, Monica Youn, From From
MacArthur Genius Grants
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1990, Patricia Hampl
-
1992, Joanna Scott
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1994, Adrienne Rich
-
2001, Andrea Barrett
-
2010, Yiyun Li
-
2012, Dinaw Mengestu
-
2018, John Keene
-
2022, Robin Wall Kimmerer
-
1981, A. R. Ammons
-
1981, Joseph Brodsky
-
1984, Galway Kinnell
-
1984, Charles Simic
-
1987, May Swenson
-
1987, Mark Strand
-
1990, Jorie Graham
-
1998, Edward Hirsch
-
1998, Linda Bierds
-
2004, C D Wright
-
2009, Heather McHugh
-
2011, A. E. Stallings
-
2014, Terrance Hayes
-
2015, Ellen Bryant Voigt
-
2018, Natalie Diaz
-
2021, Reginald Dwayne Betts
-
2024, Jericho Brown
United States Poets Laureate
-
1952: William Carlos Williams
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1958-59: Robert Frost
-
1961-63: Louis Untermeyer
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1963-64: Howard Nemerov
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1976-78: Robert Hayden
-
1978-1980: William Meredith
-
1981-82: Maxine Kumin
-
1982-84: Anthony Hecht
-
1987-88: Richard Wilbur
-
1988-90: Howard Nemerov
-
1990-91: Mark Strand
-
1991-92: Joseph Brodsky
-
1997-2000: Robert Pinsky
-
2003-2004: Louise Glück
-
2006-2007: Donald Hall
-
2007-2008: Charles Simic
-
2011-2012: Philip Levine
-
2012-2014: Natasha Trethewey
-
2017-2019: Tracy K. Smith