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Awarded annually, the $100,000 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize honors a living US poet whose lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition. Established in 1986 by Ruth Lilly, the prize is one of the most prestigious awards given to American poets.

Poetry Foundation Named 11 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize Recipients in 2022

2022 winners: Sandra Cisneros, CAConrad, Rita Dove, Nikki Giovanni, Juan Felipe Herrera, Angela Jackson, Haki Madhubuti, Sharon Olds, Sonia Sanchez, Patti Smith, and Arthur Sze.

Read more about the 2022 winners here.

2022 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize Recipients

    • Headshot of poet Sandra Cisneros

      2022

      Sandra Cisneros is a poet, a short story writer, a novelist, and an essayist who explores the lives of working-class people. Her numerous awards include NEA fellowships in poetry and fiction,...

    • Headshot of poet CA Conrad

      2022

      CAConrad has worked with the ancient technologies of poetry and ritual since 1975. As a young poet, they lived in Philadelphia, where they lost many loved ones during the early...

    • Headshot of poet Rita Dove

      2022

      Rita Dove was born in Akron, Ohio in 1952. A 1970 Presidential Scholar, she attended Miami University of Ohio, Universität Tübingen in Germany, and the University of Iowa, where she...

    • 2022

      Poet Nikki Giovanni was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, on June 7, 1943, and grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. She graduated with a degree in history from Fisk University. A world-renowned...

    • Image of Juan Felipe Herrera

      2022

      The son of farmworkers, poet Juan Felipe Herrera was born in Fowler, California, in 1948. He is a graduate of UCLA, Stanford University, and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop.  During...

    • Headshot of poet Angela Jackson
      author

      Angela Jackson is a Chicago poet, playwright, and novelist. She has received numerous honors for both fiction and poetry, including the 2022 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Pushcart Prize, the Poetry Society...

    • 2022

      Dr. Haki R. Madhubuti, poet, author, publisher, and educator, is regarded as an architect of the Black Arts Movement and is founder and publisher of Chicago's Third World Press. Third...

    • Image of Sharon Olds

      2022

      Poet Sharon Olds was born in 1942 in San Francisco and grew up in Berkeley, California where she was raised, she has said, as a “hellfire Calvinist.” She attended Stanford...

    • Headshot of poet Sonia Sanchez

      2022

      Sonia Sanchez was born in 1934 in Birmingham, Alabama. She earned her BA in political science from Hunter College in 1955, did postgraduate work at New York University, and studied...

    • Headshot of Patti Smith

      2022

      Patti Smith was born in Chicago, raised in South Jersey, and moved to New York City in 1967. Her extensive achievements as a performer, an author, and a recording and...

    • Black and white portrait of poet Arthur Sze

      2022

      Arthur Sze is a poet, a translator, and an editor. He is the author of 11 books of poetry, including The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems (Copper Canyon Press,...

Past Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize Recipients

    • Poet Patricia Smith wearing a beaded necklace and smiling with her hand on her chin

      2021

      Patricia Smith has been called “a testament to the power of words to change lives.” She is the author of eight books of poetry, including Incendiary Art (2017), winner of...

    • Image of Marilyn Chin

      2020

      Marilyn Chin was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Portland, Oregon. She earned a BA in Chinese literature from the University of Massachusetts and an MFA from the...

    • Black and white portrait of Marilyn Nelson in a shirt with a fenced background

      2019

      Marilyn Nelson was born in Cleveland, Ohio, into a military family: she is the daughter of one of the last of the Tuskegee Airmen. Her mother was a teacher. Nelson...

    • Black and white photo of the poet Martín Espada.

      2018

      As a poet, essayist, translator, editor, and attorney, Martín Espada has dedicated much of his career to the pursuit of social justice, including fighting for human rights and reclaiming the...

    • Image of Joy Harjo

      2017

      Joy Harjo was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. She earned her BA from the University of New Mexico and MFA from the...

    • Image of Ed Roberson

      2016

      Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Ed Roberson studied painting in his youth and was educated at the University of Pittsburgh. His extensive travels inform his work, which is also influenced...

    • Poet Alice Notley reading at the Poesie Festival in Berlin

      2015

      Alice Notley has become one of America’s greatest living poets. She has long written in narrative and epic and genre-bending modes to discover new ways to explore the nature of...

    • Headshot of poet Nathaniel Mackey.

      2014

      Born in Miami and raised in Southern California, poet, novelist, editor, and critic Nathaniel Mackey earned his BA from Princeton University and his PhD from Stanford University. Mackey is the...

    • Portrait of Marie Ponsot, poet, literary critic and essayist, in her kitchen in the morning. Queens, New York. April 23, 1988.

      2013

      Born in New York, poet and translator Marie Ponsot was the daughter of a teacher and a wine importer and was raised Catholic, a faith she kept her whole life....

    • W. S. Di Piero

      2012

      W.S. Di Piero was born in 1945 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and earned his BA from St. Joseph’s College and MA from San Francisco State College. A poet, essayist, art critic,...

    • Black and white headshot of poet David Ferry.

      2011

      David Ferry is an acclaimed American poet, professor, and translator. Ferry’s translations, which include some of the world's major works of poetry are known for their fluency and grace. In...

    • Headshot of poet Eleanor Ross Taylor in red.

      2010

      Eleanor Ross Taylor was born in 1920 in Norwood, North Carolina, and graduated from Women’s College, now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, in 1942.  While studying at Vanderbilt...

    • Portrait of Fanny Howe

      2009

      Fanny Howe is the author of more than 20 books of poetry and prose. Howe grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and studied at Stanford University. “If someone is alone reading my...

    • Poet Gary Snyder is honored during the 11th Annual California Hall of Fame ceremony at The California Museum on December 5, 2017 in Sacramento, California.

      2008

      Gary Snyder began his career in the 1950s as a noted member of the “Beat Generation,” though he has since explored a wide range of social and spiritual matters in...

    • SM-Poets- 03/22/06- St. Mary's City, MD- Poets Edward Hirsch and Lucille Clifton speak on Why Poetry Matters. Clifton answers question from the group. By James M Thresher-TWP 178587

      2007

      Lucille Clifton was born in 1936 in DePew, New York, and grew up in Buffalo. She studied at Howard University, before transferring to SUNY Fredonia, near her hometown. She was discovered...

    • Photograph of Richard Wilbur sitting in front of bookshelves in a suit.

      2006

      Richard Wilbur was born on March 1, 1921 in New York City. One of the most lauded and honored poets of 20th century American verse, Wilbur was the second poet...

    • Headshot of poet C.K. Williams in front of plants.

      2005

      Hailed by poet Paul Muldoon in the Times Literary Supplement as “one of the most distinguished poets of his generation,” C.K. Williams created a highly respected body of work, including...

    • Kay Ryan

      2004

      Born in California in 1945 and acknowledged as one of the most original voices in the contemporary landscape, Kay Ryan is the author of several books of poetry, including Flamingo Watching...

    • Portrait of Carina Romano in a green sweater, leaning forward  in a pensive position with her left hand under her chin.

      2003

      Poet Linda Pastan was raised in New York City but has lived for most of her life in Potomac, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, DC. In her senior year at...

    • Image of Lisel Mueller

      2002

      Poet and translator Lisel Mueller was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1924. The daughter of teachers, she and her family were forced to flee the Nazi regime when Mueller was...

    • Photograph of Yusef Komunyakaa in front of a blue door.

      2001

      Yusef Komunyakaa was born in Bogalusa, Louisiana. The son of a carpenter, Komunyakaa has said that he was first alerted to the power of language through his grandparents, who were...

    • Headshot of poet Carl Dennis.

      2000

      Carl Dennis was born in 1939 in St. Louis, Missouri. He earned a BA from the University of Minnesota and a PhD from the University of California-Berkeley. He taught at...

    • Headshot of poet Maxine Kumin in front of a body of water.

      1999

      An enduring presence in American poetry, Maxine Kumin’s career spanned over half a century. Maxine Kumin (née Winokur) was born to a Reform Jewish family in Germantown, Pennsylvania. She attended...

    • CANADA - JUNE 07: W.S. Merwin U.S. Poet

      1998

      William Stanley (W.S.) Merwin was born in New York City in 1927 and raised in New Jersey and Scranton, Pennsylvania, the son of a Presbyterian minister. His numerous collections of...

    • Black and white headshot of poet William Matthews.

      1997

      William Matthews was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. He earned a BA from Yale and MFA from the University of North Carolina. The author of eleven books of poetry, Matthews earned...

    • Black and white headshot of poet Gerald Stern.

      1996

      Gerald Stern has been called an “American original,” “a sometimes comic, sometimes tragic visionary,” and, by his friend Stanley Kunitz, “the wilderness in American poetry.” Over dozens of books, and...

    • Portrait of A. R .Ammons

      1995

      Archibald Randolph (A.R.) Ammons was born in rural North Carolina on February 18, 1926. His experiences growing up on a cotton and tobacco farm during the Great Depression inspired a...

    • Image of the poet Donald Hall.

      1994

      Donald Hall was considered one of the major American poets of his generation. His poetry explores the longing for a more bucolic past and reflects the poet’s abiding reverence for nature....

    • Image of Charles Wright

      1993

      Charles Wright is often ranked as one of the best American poets of his generation. Born in 1935 in Pickwick Dam, Tennessee, Wright attended Davidson College and the Iowa Writers’...

    • American writer John Ashbery poses during portrait session held on February 20, 1996 in Paris, France.

      1992

      John Ashbery was recognized as one of the greatest 20th-century American poets. He won nearly every major American award for poetry, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the...

    • Side profile of poet David Wagoner, with his hand over his mouth.

      1991

      David Wagoner was recognized as the leading poet of the Pacific Northwest, often compared to his early mentor Theodore Roethke, and highly praised for his skillful, insightful and serious body...

    • Headshot of poet Hayden Carruth, with a hand on his beard.

      1990

      "Now and then a poet comes along whose work ranges across wide and diverse territories of form, attitude, and emotion—yet with the necessary intelligence that belies a deep, lifelong engagement...

    • Black and white headshot of poet Mona van Duyn.

      1989

      Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mona Van Duyn was born in Waterloo, Iowa and raised in Eldora, Iowa. She earned a BA from Iowa State Teachers College and an MA from the...

    • Image of Anthony Hecht

      1988

      Anthony Hecht was a renowned poet and critic. A longtime professor of poetry at the University of Rochester, Hecht also taught at institutions such as Georgetown, Yale, Harvard, and Smith...

    • Image of Philip Levine

      1987

      Philip Levine was one of the leading poetic voices of his generation, “a large, ironic Whitman of the industrial heartland,” according to Edward Hirsch. The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, Levine was...

    • Black and white photograph of Adrienne Rich sitting at a desk, surrounded by piles of books.

      1986

      During her life, poet and essayist Adrienne Rich was one of America’s foremost public intellectuals. Widely read and hugely influential, Rich’s career spanned seven decades and has hewed closely to...