The Yale Series of Younger Poets is an annual event of Yale University Press aiming to publish the debut collection of a promising American poet. Established in 1918, the Younger Poets Prize is the longest-running annual literary award in the United States.
Each year, the Younger Poets Competition accepts submissions from American poets who have not previously published a book of poetry. Once the judge has chosen a winner, the Press publishes a book-length manuscript of the winner's poetry as the next volume in the series. All poems must be original, and only one manuscript may be entered at a time.
Rules and eligibility Contest requirements were first articulated in the summer of 1920. The series had already published four books, all written by Yale students, and the judges sought to attract a nationwide pool of applicants. A promotional statement gave the following, somewhat vague eligibility requirements: "Anyone is eligible provided he (or she) is young and comparatively unknown. The age limit is understood to be about thirty." A formal set of rules was adopted in 1924. In addition to specifying page limits and other manuscript requirements, these new rules limited the contest to American citizens younger than 30. However, current rules allow poets of any age who have not published a book of poetry to be considered. Although the contest was briefly opened to any writer of English-language poetry under Auden's judgeship, it has remained limited to American citizens ever since.
History 20th century
The Younger Poets Series was established in 1919 by Clarence Day, whose brother George Parmly Day founded Yale University Press with his wife Wilhelmine in 1908. The competition's first judge, Charlton Miner Lewis, was a prominent professor in Yale's English department. The inaugural competition took place after the end of World War I, just as an influx of young veterans returned from fighting in Europe and entered college. Modernist poetry emerged in this period, but early entries in the series reflected the neoclassical tastes of the older generation adjudicating the competition, all men who had received degrees from Yale in the late-19th century. The anglophilic publishers were heavily influenced by English poetry, especially the contemporary Georgian poetry, and the competition itself was directly influenced by the similar "Adventures All" poetry series of Oxford University Press.
The contest solidified its importance in American literature under the judgeship of Stephen Vincent Benét. Benet was judge from 1933 to 1942, followed by Archibald MacLeish from 1944 to 1946. Margaret Walker's For My People was the last volume selected by Benet. Auden assumed the judgeship after MacLeish.
The contest is regarded by some to have been at its height from 1947 to 1959, when W. H. Auden was its judge. His then-young poets included Adrienne Rich, James Wright, W. S. Merwin, John Ashbery, and John Hollander. The period was also notable for the two-time refusal of Sylvia Plath's manuscript Two Lovers, and Colossus, which was subsequently published in England.
Between 1969 and 1977, overseen by Stanley Kunitz, included volumes by Carolyn Forché and Robert Hass; Hass later became the Poet Laureate of the United States.
21st century The judgeship of W. S. Merwin, from 1998 to 2003, was fraught with controversy, as he refused to select a winner the first year that he was judge. Louise Glück, who is widely considered to have revived the prize's stature, judged the award from 2003 to 2010. Rae Armantrout judged the prize from 2021 to 2025. Monica Youn is the current judge.
Judges
Past winners The year column provides the date of the competition. The winning poetry collections are published the following year.
Year
Poet Title Judge 1918 1
2
Forgotten Shrines 1919 3
Four Gardens 4
Spires and Poplars 5
6
Where Lilith Dances 1920 7
Wild Geese 8
Horizons 9
Wampum and Old Gold 10
Golden Darkness 1921 11
White April 12
Dreams and a Sword 13
Hidden Waters 14
Attitudes 1922 15
16
Battle-Retrospect 17
Silver Wands
18
Mosaics 1923 19
Up and Down
1924 20
Coach into Pumpkin
1925 21
Quest 22
High Passage 1926 23
Dark Pavilion 1927 24
Twist o' Smoke 25
26
This Unchanging Mask 1928 27
Hemlock Wall 28
Half-Light and Overture 1929 29
Virtuosa 1930 30
Dark Certainty 1931 31
Worn Earth 1932 32
1933 33
Permit Me Voyage 1934 34
Theory of Flight 1935 35
1936 36
1937 37
Letter to a Comrade 1938 38
1939 39
Return Again, Traveler 1940 40
1941 41
For My People 1942 colspan="3"
1943 42
Love Letters from an Impossible Land 1944 43
Cut Is the Branch 1945 44
Family Circle 1946 45
Poems
1947 46
1948 47
1949 colspan="3" 1950 48
1951 49
1952 50
Various Jangling Keys 1953 51
1954 colspan="3" 1955 52
Some Trees 1956 53
1957 54
1958 55
Of the Festivity 1959 56
Bone Thoughts
1960 57
Poems 1961 58
Views of Jeopardy 1962 59
Manhattan Pastures 1963 60
The Breaking of the Day 1964 61
Dream Barker 1965 colspan="3" 1966 62
1967 63
Coming Close and Other Poems 1968 64
Uranium Poems 1969 65
Collecting Evidence
1970 66
Lugging Vegetables to Nantucket 1971 67
Obscenities 1972 68
Field Guide 1973 69
Threats Instead of Trees 1974 70
Snow on Snow 1975 71
Gathering the Tribes 1976 72
Beginning with O 1977 73
1978 74
Natural Histories 1979 75
One Way to Reconstruct the Scene 1980 76
Green Soldiers 1981 77
Icehouse Lights 1982 78
Picture Bride 1983 79
1984 80
Navigable Waterways 1985 81
Terms to Be Met 1986 82
Above the Land 1987 83
To the Place of Trumpets 1988 84
Out of the Woods 1989 85
Hermit with Landscape 1990 86
Bears Dancing in the Northern Air
1991 87
Hands of the Saddlemaker 1992 88
Stone Crop 1993 89
Thinking the World Visible 1994 90
Living in the Resurrection 1995 91
Cities of Memory 1996 92
My Shining Archipelago 1997 colspan="3"
1998 93
Shells 1999 94
Ultima Thule 2000 95
Lawrence Booth's Book of Visions 2001 96
Discography 2002 97
Famous Americans 2003 98
2004 99
Crush
2005 100
Green Squall 2006 101
Frail-Craft 2007 102
The Earth in the Attic 2008 103
It Is Daylight 2009 104
Juvenilia 2010 105
Radial Symmetry 2011 106
Slow Lightning
2012 107
Westerly 2013 108
Eruv 2014 109
Blue Yodel 2015 110
2016 111
simulacra 2017 112 Duy Doan We Play a Game 2018 113 Yanyi
2019 114 Jill Osier
2020115Desiree C. BaileyWhat Noise Against The Cane2021116Robert Wood LynnMothman Apologia 2022117Mary-Alice DanielMass for Shut-Ins2023118Cindy Juyoung OkWard Toward2024119John LilesBees, and After2025120Isabel NealThrown Voice2026121JC AndrewsOf an IlkMonica Youn
See also American poetry List of poetry awards List of literary awards List of years in poetry List of years in literature
References Citations
Sources
External links Official website