Yale Series of Younger Poets

Yale Series of Younger Poets
	Centennial logo
Country	United States
Language	English
Publisher	Yale University Press
Published	Annually since 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.^[2]

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.^[2]

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.^[3]

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