Yale Series of Younger Poets

Yale Series of Younger Poets

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Country	United States
Language	English
Publisher	Yale University Press
Published	Annually since 1919 (1919)
No. of books	114

The Yale Series of Younger Poets is a yearly event of Yale University Press to print the first book of poems by a new American poet. It began in 1919. It is the longest-running yearly literary award in the United States.

Each year, the Younger Poets Competition accepts books from American poets who have not yet published a book of poetry. Once the judge chooses a winner, that book is printed as the next book in the series. All poems must be original. Only one book may be entered at a time.

Winners get a $1,000 advance payment and a contract to publish their book. They also get one of the five writing fellowships at The James Merrill House in Stonington, CT. There they will have a furnished living space and daily access to James Merrill’s apartment. This gives the writer a quiet place to work on a literary or academic project.

Judges

• Present: Rae Armantrout
• 2011 – 2020: Carl Phillips
• 2003 – 2010: Louise Glück
• 1997 – 2003: W. S. Merwin
• 1990 – 1996: James Dickey
• 1983 – 1989: James Merrill
• 1977 – 1982: Richard Hugo
• 1969 – 1976: Stanley Kunitz
• 1958 – 1968: Dudley Fitts
• 1946 – 1958: W. H. Auden
• 1942 – 1945: Archibald MacLeish
• 1933 – 1942: Stephen Vincent Benét
• 1925 – 1932: William Alexander Percy
• 1923 – 1924: Edward Bliss Reed
• 1923: Frederick E. Pierce
• 1919 – 1923: Charlton M. Lewis

Winners

• 2022 – Mary-Alice Daniel, Mass for Shut-Ins
• 2021 – Robert Wood Lynn, Mothman Apologia
• 2020 – Desiree C. Bailey, What Noise Against the Cane
• 2019 – Jill Osier, The Solace Is Not the Lullaby
• 2018 – Yanyi, The Year of Blue Water
• 2017 – Duy Doan, We Play a Game
• 2016 – Airea D. Matthews, Simulacra
• 2015 – Noah Warren, The Destroyer in the Glass
• 2014 – Ansel Elkins, Blue Yodel
• 2013 – Eryn Green, Eruv
• 2012 – Will Schutt, Westerly
• 2011 – Eduardo Corral, Slow Lightning
• 2010 – Katherine Larson, Radial Symmetry
• 2009 – Ken Chen, Juvenilia
• 2008 – Arda Collins, It Is Daylight
• 2007 – Fady Joudah, The Earth in the Attic
• 2006 – Jessica Fisher, Frail-Craft
• 2005 – Jay Hopler, Green Squall
• 2004 – Richard Siken, Crush
• 2003 – Peter Streckfus, The Cuckoo
• 2002 – Loren Goodman, Famous Americans
• 2001 – Sean Singer, Discography
• 2000 – Maurice Manning, Lawrence Booth’s Book Of Visions
• 1999 – Davis McCombs, Ultima Thule
• 1998 – Craig Arnold, Shells
• 1996- Talvikki Ansel, My Shining Archipelago
• 1995 – Ellen Hinsey, Cities of Memory
• 1994 – Tony Crunk, Living in The Resurrection
• 1993 – Valerie Wohlfield, Thinking The World Visible
• 1992 – Jody Gladding, Stone Crop
• 1991 – Nicholas Samaras, Hands of The Saddlemaker
• 1990 – Christiane Jacox Kyle, Bears Dancing in the Northern Air
• 1989 – Daniel Hall, Hermit with Landscape
• 1988 – Thomas Bolt, Out of The Woods
• 1987 – Brigit Pegeen Kelly, To The Place of Trumpets
• 1986 – Julie Agoos, Above The Lands
• 1985 – George Bradley, Terms To Be Met
• 1984 – Pamela Alexander, Navigable Waterways
• 1983 – Richard Kenney, The Evolution of the Flightless Bird
• 1982 – Cathy Song, Picture Bride
• 1981 – David Wojahn, Icehouse Lights
• 1980 – John Bensko, Green Soldiers
• 1979 – William Virgil Davis, One Way to Reconstruct The Scene
• 1978 – Leslie Ullman, Natural Histories
• 1977 – Bin Ramke, The Difference Between Night and Day
• 1976 – Olga Broumas, Beginning with O
• 1975 – Carolyn Forché, Gathering The Tribes
• 1974 – Maura Stanton, Snow on Snow
• 1973 – Michael Ryan, Threats Instead of Trees
• 1972 – Robert Hass, Field Guide
• 1971 – Michael Casey, Obscenities
• 1970 – Peter Klappert, Lugging Vegetables to Nantucket
• 1969 – Hugh Seidman, Collecting Evidence
• 1968 – Judith Johnson Sherwin, Uranium Poems
• 1967 – Helen Chasin, Coming Close and Other Poems
• 1966 – James Tate, The Lost Pilot
• 1964 – Jean Valentine, Dream Barker
• 1963 – Peter Davison, The Breaking of the Day
• 1962 – Sandra Hochman, Manhattan Pastures
• 1961 – Jack Gilbert, Views of Jeopardy
• 1960 – Alan Dugan, Poems
• 1959 – George Starbuck, Bone Thoughts
• 1958 – William Dickey, Of The Festivity
• 1957 – John Hollander, A Crackling of Thorns
• 1956 – James Wright, The Green Wall
• 1955 – John Ashbery, Some Trees
• 1953 – Daniel Hoffman, An Armada of Thirty Whales
• 1952 – Edgar Bogardus, Various Jangling Keys
• 1951 – W. S. Merwin, A Mask for Janus
• 1950 – Adrienne Rich, A Change of World
• 1948 – Rosalie Moore, The Grasshopper’s Man and Other Poems
• 1947 – Robert Horan, A Beginning
• 1946 – Joan Murray, Poems
• 1945 – Eve Merriam, Family Circle
• 1944 – Charles E. Butler, Cut Is the Branch
• 1943 – William Meredith, Love Letters from an Impossible Land
• 1941 – Margaret Walker, For My People
• 1940 – Jeremy Ingalls, The Metaphysical Sword
• 1939 – Norman Rosten, Return Again, Traveler
• 1938 – Reuel Denney, The Connecticut River and Other Poems
• 1937 – Joy Davidman, Letter to a Comrade
• 1936 – Margaret Haley, The Gardener Mind
• 1935 – Edward Weis Miller, The Deer Come Down
• 1934 – Muriel Rukeyser, Theory of Flight
• 1933 – James Agee, Permit Me Voyage
• 1932 – Shirley Baker, The Dark Hills Under
• 1931 – Paul Engle, Worn Earth
• 1930 – Dorothy Belle Flanagan (aka Dorothy B. Hughes) – Dark Certainty
• 1929 – Louise Owen, Virtuosa
• 1928 – Henri Faust, Half-Light and Overture; Frances M. Frost, Hemlock Wall
• 1927 – Francis Claiborne Mason, This Unchanging Mask; Ted Olson, A Stranger and Afraid; Mildred Bowers, Twist o’ Smoke
• 1926 – Lindley Williams Hubbell, Dark Pavilion
• 1925 – Thomas Hornsby Ferril, High Passage; Eleanor Slater, Quest
• 1924 – Dorothy E. Reid, Coach into Pumpkin
• 1923 – Elizabeth Jessup Blake, Up and Down
• 1922 – Beatrice E. Harmon, Mosaics; Marion M. Boyd, Silver Wands; Amos Niven Wilder, Battle-Retrospect; Dean B. Lyman, Jr., The Last Lutanist
• 1921 – Paul Tanaquil, Attitudes; Barnard Raymund, Hidden Waters; Medora C. Addison, Dreams and a Sword; Harold Vinal, White April
• 1920 – Oscar Williams, Golden Darkness; Hervey Allen, Wampum and Old Gold; Viola C. White, Horizons; Theodore H. Banks, Jr., Wild Geese
• 1919 – Darl MacLeod Boyle, Where Lilith Dances; Thomas Caldecot Chubb, The White God and Other Poems; Alfred Raymond Bellinger, Spires and Poplars; David Osborne Hamilton, Four Gardens
• 1918 – John C. Farrar, Forgotten Shrines; Howard Buck, The Tempering