The Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize has been awarded by Columbia University since 1917. The awards are given on the recommendations of a board of jurors. Categories include Journalism, Letters, Music and Drama. The awards for Letters include Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Biography, Autobiography, and History.

Named after Hungarian newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, the award honors books which address those themes in life which address the passion and tragedy of the human condition.

The prize for poetry is for an original volume of verse by an American author receives $7,500.

Poetry was not one of the categories originally included in Joseph Pulitzer's bequest of five hundred thousand dollars. There were only four categories when the first prizes were awarded: Novel, Drama, History, and Journalism.

The Pulitzer Prize winnners in poetry are:

2006 Delights & Shadows by Ted Kooser
2005 Walking to Martha's Vineyard by Franz Wright
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: Poems 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 Simple Truth by Philip Levine
1994 Neon Vernacular by Yusef Komunyakaa
1993 The Wild Iris by Louise Gluck
1992 Selected Poems by James Tate
1991 Near 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 Carolyn Kizer
1984 American Primitive by Mary Oliver
1983 Selected Poems by Galway Kinnell
1982 The Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath
1981 The Morning of the Poem by James Schuyler
1980 Selected Poems by Donald Rodney Justice
1979 Now and Then: Poems 1976-1978 by Robert Penn Warren
1978 Collected Poems by Howard Nemerov
1977 Divine Comedies by James Merrill
1976 Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror by Gary Snyder
1974 The Dolphin by Robert Lowell
1973 Up Country by James Wright
1971 The Carrier of Ladders by William S. Merwin
1970 Untitled Subjects by Richard Howard
1969 Of Being Numerous by George Oppen
1968 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 William Snodgrass
1959 Selected Poems 1928-1958 by Stanley Kunitz
1958 Promises: Poems 1954-1956 by Richard Wilbur
1956 Poems-North & South by Elizabeth Bishop
1955 Collected Poems by Wallace Stevens
1954 The Waking by Theodore Roethke
1953 Archibald MacLeish, Collected Poems 1917- 1952
1952 Collected Poems by Marianne Moore
1951 Complete Poems by Carl Sandburg
1950 Annie Allen by W. H. Auden
1947 Lord Weary's Castle by Robert Lowell
1946 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. T. Coffin
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 Brown's Body by Stephen Vincent Benet
1928 Tristram by Edwin Arlington Robinson
1927 Fiddler's Fare Well by Leonora Speyer
1926 What's O'clock by Edwin Arlington Robinson
1924 New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes by Robert Frost
1923 Ballad of the Harp-Weaver by Edna St. Vincent Millay
1922 Collected Poems by Edwin Arlington Robinson
1921 No Award
1920 No Award
1919 Old Road to Paradise by Margaret Widdemer
1918 Love Songs by Sara Teasdale

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