ShelfEvidentNational Book Award for Poetry — Complete Winners List
69 years of winners · National Book Foundation · Since 1950 · ← Back to award page
| 2025 | Patricia Smith | — | |
| 2024 | Lena Khalaf Tuffaha | — | |
| 2023 | Craig Santos Perez | — | |
| 2022 | John Keene | — | |
| 2021 | Martín Espada | — | |
| 2020 | Don Mee Choi | — | |
| 2019 | Arthur Sze | — | |
| 2018 | Justin Phillip Reed | — | |
| 2017 | Frank Bidart | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | |
| 2016 | Daniel Borzutzky | Brooklyn Arts Press | |
| 2015 | Robin Coste Lewis | Knopf | |
| 2014 | Louise Glück | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | |
| 2013 | Mary Szybist | — | |
| 2012 | David Ferry | — | |
| 2011 | Nikky Finney | TriQuarterly Books | |
| 2010 | Terrance Hayes | Penguin Books | |
| 2009 | Keith Waldrop | — | |
| 2008 | Mark Doty | — | |
| 2007 | Robert Hass | — | |
| 2006 | Nathaniel Mackey | — | |
| 2005 | W. S. Merwin | — | |
| 2004 | Jean Valentine | — | |
| 2003 | C. K. Williams | — | |
| 2002 | Ruth Stone | — | |
| 2001 | Alan Dugan | — | |
| 2000 | Lucille Clifton | — | |
| 1999 | Ai | — | |
| 1998 | Gerald Stern | — | |
| 1997 | William Meredith | — | |
| 1996 | Hayden Carruth | — | |
| 1995 | Stanley Kunitz | — | |
| 1994 | James Tate | — | |
| 1993 | A. R. Ammons | — | |
| 1992 | Mary Oliver | — | |
| 1991 | Philip Levine | — | |
| 1983 | Galway Kinnell | — | |
| 1982 | William Bronk | — | |
| 1981 | Lisel Mueller | — | |
| 1980 | Philip Levine | — | |
| 1979 | James Merrill | — | |
| 1978 | Howard Nemerov | — | |
| 1977 | Richard Eberhart | — | |
| 1976 | John Ashbery | — | |
| 1975 | Marilyn Hacker | — | |
| 1974 | Adrienne Rich | — | |
| 1973 | A. R. Ammons | — | |
| 1972 | Frank O'Hara | — | |
| 1971 | Mona Van Duyn | — | |
| 1970 | Elizabeth Bishop | — | |
| 1969 | John Berryman | — | |
| 1968 | Robert Bly | — | |
| 1967 | James Merrill | — | |
| 1966 | James Dickey | — | |
| 1965 | Theodore Roethke | — | |
| 1964 | John Crowe Ransom | — | |
| 1963 | William Stafford | — | |
| 1962 | Alan Dugan | — | |
| 1961 | Randall Jarrell | — | |
| 1960 | Robert Lowell | — | |
| 1959 | Theodore Roethke | — | |
| 1958 | Robert Penn Warren | — | |
| 1957 | Richard Wilbur | — | |
| 1956 | W. H. Auden | — | |
| 1955 | Wallace Stevens | — | |
| 1954 | Conrad Aiken | — | |
| 1953 | Archibald MacLeish | — | |
| 1952 | Marianne Moore | — | |
| 1951 | Wallace Stevens | — | |
| 1950 | William Carlos Williams | — |
