| The Walt Whitman Award | |
| Awarded For: | Encourage the work of emerging poets and to enable the publication of a poet’s first book |
| Presenter: | Academy of American Poets |
| Country: | United States |
| Year: | 1975 |
The Walt Whitman Award is a poetry award administered by the Academy of American Poets.[1] [2] [3] [4] Named after poet Walt Whitman, the award is based on a competition of book-length poetry manuscripts by American poets who have not yet published a book.[5] It has been described as "a transformative honor that includes publication and distribution of the book though the Academy, $5,000 in cash and an all-expenses-paid [six-week] residency" at the Civitella Ranieri Center in the Umbrian region of Italy.
The Library of Congress includes the Walt Whitman Award among distinctions noted for poets,[6] as does The New York Times, which also occasionally publishes articles about new awards.[7]
The award was established in 1975. In a New York Times opinion piece from 1985, the novelist John Barth noted that 1475 manuscripts had been entered into one of the Whitman Award competitions, which exceeded the number of subscribers to some poetry journals.[8] Since 1992, Louisiana State University Press has published each volume as part of its "Walt Whitman Award Series";[9] the Academy purchases and distributes copies to its associate members, along with copies of the winning volume for the James Laughlin Award.[10] Since the academy buys 6,000 copies for its members, and the average print run for a poet's first book is 3,000 copies, a Whitman Award guarantees a best seller in the tiny poetry market.[11]
| Year | Poet | Book | Judge | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | The Blue Mimes (Graywolf Press) | Eduardo C. Corral | ||
| 2022 | Saltwater Demands a Psalm (Graywolf Press) | Tyehimba Jess | ||
| 2021 | Againist Heaven (Graywolf Press) | Claudia Rankine | ||
| 2020 | The Wild Fox of Yemen (Graywolf Press) | Harryette Mullen | ||
| 2019 | The More Extravagant Feast (Graywolf Press) | Li-Young Lee[12] | ||
| 2018 | Brute (Graywolf Press) | Joy Harjo | ||
| 2017 | Eye Level (Graywolf Press) | Juan Felipe Herrera | ||
| 2016 | Afterland (Graywolf Press) | Carolyn Forché | ||
| 2015 | Rapture (Graywolf Press) | Tracy K. Smith | ||
| 2014 | Hannah Sanghee Park[13] | The Same-Different (LSU Press) | Rae Armantrout | |
| 2013 | Put Your Hands In (LSU Press) | John Ashbery | ||
| 2012 | Black Aperture (LSU Press) | Jane Hirshfield | ||
| 2011 | Elana Bell[14] | Eyes, Stones (LSU Press) | ||
| 2010 | Curses and Wishes (LSU Press) | |||
| 2009 | J. Michael Martinez[15] | Heredities (LSU Press)[16] | ||
| 2008 | Jonathan Thirkield[17] | The Waker's Corridor (LSU Press) | Linda Bierds | |
| 2007 | Sally Van Doren[18] | Sex at Noon Taxes (LSU Press) | August Kleinzahler | |
| 2006 | Anne Pierson Wiese[19] | Floating City (LSU Press) | ||
| 2005 | Half Wild (LSU Press) | |||
| 2004 | Resin (LSU Press) | |||
| 2003 | Invisible Bride (LSU Press) | |||
| 2002 | Sue Kwock Kim[20] | Notes from the Divided Country (LSU Press) | ||
| 2001 | John Canaday | The Invisible World (LSU Press) | ||
| 2000 | Radio, Radio (LSU Press) | |||
| 1999 | Judy Jordan | Carolina Ghost Woods (LSU Press) | James Tate | |
| 1998 | Jan Heller Levi | Once I Gazed at You in Wonder (LSU Press) | ||
| 1997 | Bite Every Sorrow (LSU Press) | |||
| 1996 | Madonna anno domini (LSU Press) | |||
| 1995 | Resurrection (LSU Press) | |||
| 1994 | Because the Brain Can Be Talked into Anything (LSU Press) | |||
| 1993 | Science and Other Poems (LSU Press) | |||
| 1992 | Stephen Yenser | The Fire in All Things (LSU Press) | ||
| 1991 | From the Iron Chair (W. W. Norton) | |||
| 1990 | Elaine Terranova | The Cult of the Right Hand (Doubleday) | ||
| 1989 | The Game of Statues (Atlantic Monthly Press) | |||
| 1988 | April Bernard | Blackbird Bye Bye (Random House) | ||
| 1987 | The Weight of Numbers (Wesleyan U. Press) | |||
| 1986 | Fragments from the Fire (Viking) | |||
| 1985 | Bindweed (Macmillan) | |||
| 1984 | For the New Year (Atheneum) | |||
| 1983 | Christopher Gilbert[21] | Across the Mutual Landscape (Graywolf Press) | ||
| 1982 | Jurgis Petraskas (Louisiana State University Press) | |||
| 1981 | Whispering to Fool the Wind (Sheep Meadow Press) | |||
| 1980 | Jared Carter[22] | Work, for the Night is Coming (Macmillan) | ||
| 1979 | Shooting Rats at the Bibb County Dump (Morrow) | |||
| 1978 | Karen Snow[23] | Wonders (Viking) | ||
| 1977 | Guilty Bystander (Random House) | |||
| 1976 | The Hocus-Pocus of the Universe (Doubleday) | |||
| 1975 | Climbing into the Roots (Harper & Row) |