Yale Series of Younger Poets

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."Template:Sfn A formal set of rules was adopted in 1924.Template:Sfn In addition to specifying page limits and other manuscript requirements, these new rules limited the contest to American citizens younger than 30.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn

History

20th century

File:The Tempering - Howard Buck.jpg

The Tempering, published by Howard Buck in 1919, is the first volume in the series.

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.Template:Sfn The competition's first judge, Charlton Miner Lewis, was a prominent professor in Yale's English department.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn

The contest solidified its importance in American literature under the judgeship of Stephen Vincent Benét.Template:Sfn 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 someTemplate:Sfn 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,Template:Sfn and Colossus, which was subsequently published in England.Template:Sfn

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 consideredTemplate:Sfn 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

• Judges of the Yale Series of Younger Poets CompetitionTemplate:Sfn
• Charlton M. Lewis (1919–1923)
  Charlton M. Lewis
  (1919–1923)
• Frederick E. Pierce (1923)
  Frederick E. Pierce
  (1923)
• Edward Bliss Reed (1923–24)
  Edward Bliss Reed
  (1923–24)
• William Alexander Percy (1925–1932)
  William Alexander Percy
  (1925–1932)
• Stephen Vincent Benét (1933–1942)
  Stephen Vincent Benét
  (1933–1942)
• Archibald MacLeish (1942–1945)
  Archibald MacLeish
  (1942–1945)
• W. H. Auden (1946–1958)
  W. H. Auden
  (1946–1958)
• Dudley Fitts (1958–1968)
  Dudley Fitts
  (1958–1968)
• Stanley Kunitz (1969–1976)
  Stanley Kunitz
  (1969–1976)
• Richard Hugo (1977–1982)
  Richard Hugo
  (1977–1982)
• James Merrill (1983–1989)
  James Merrill
  (1983–1989)
• James Dickey (1990–1996)
  James Dickey
  (1990–1996)
• W. S. Merwin (1997–2003)
  W. S. Merwin
  (1997–2003)
• Louise Glück (2003–2010)
  Louise Glück
  (2003–2010)
• Carl Phillips(2011–2020)
  Carl Phillips
  (2011–2020)
• Rae Armantrout(2021–2025)
  Rae Armantrout (2021–2025)
• Monica Youn(2025–2026)
  Monica Youn (2026–present)

Past winners

The year column provides the date of the competition. The winning poetry collections are published the following year.

Year	Vol.	Poet	Title	Judge	Ref.
1918	1				Template:Sfn
	2		Forgotten Shrines		Template:Sfn
1919	3		Four Gardens		Template:Sfn
	4		Spires and Poplars		Template:Sfn
	5				Template:Sfn
	6		Where Lilith Dances		Template:Sfn
1920	7		Wild Geese		Template:Sfn
	8		Horizons		Template:Sfn
	9		Wampum and Old Gold		Template:Sfn
	10		Golden Darkness		Template:Sfn
1921	11		White April		Template:Sfn
	12		Dreams and a Sword		Template:Sfn
	13		Hidden Waters		Template:Sfn
	14		Attitudes		Template:Sfn
1922	15				Template:Sfn
	16		Battle-Retrospect		Template:Sfn
	17		Silver Wands		Template:Sfn
	18		Mosaics		Template:Sfn
1923	19		Up and Down		Template:Sfn
1924	20		Coach into Pumpkin		Template:Sfn
1925	21		Quest		Template:Sfn
	22		High Passage		Template:Sfn
1926	23		Dark Pavilion		Template:Sfn
1927	24		Twist o' Smoke		Template:Sfn
	25				Template:Sfn
	26		This Unchanging Mask		Template:Sfn
1928	27		Hemlock Wall		Template:Sfn
	28		Half-Light and Overture		Template:Sfn
1929	29		Virtuosa		Template:Sfn
1930	30		Dark Certainty		Template:Sfn
1931	31		Worn Earth		Template:Sfn
1932	32				Template:Sfn
1933	33		Permit Me Voyage		Template:Sfn
1934	34		Theory of Flight		Template:Sfn
1935	35				Template:Sfn
1936	36				Template:Sfn
1937	37		Letter to a Comrade		Template:Sfn
1938	38				Template:Sfn
1939	39		Return Again, Traveler		Template:Sfn
1940	40				Template:Sfn
1941	41		For My People		Template:Sfn
1942	No winner selected				Template:Sfn
1943	42		Love Letters from an Impossible Land		Template:Sfn
1944	43		Cut Is the Branch		Template:Sfn
1945	44		Family Circle		Template:Sfn
1946	45		Poems		Template:Sfn
1947	46				Template:Sfn
1948	47				Template:Sfn
1949	No winner selected				Template:Sfn
1950	48				Template:Sfn
1951	49				Template:Sfn
1952	50		Various Jangling Keys		Template:Sfn
1953	51				Template:Sfn
1954	No winner selected				Template:Sfn
1955	52		Some Trees		Template:Sfn
1956	53				Template:Sfn
1957	54				Template:Sfn
1958	55		Of the Festivity		Template:Sfn
1959	56		Bone Thoughts		Template:Sfn
1960	57		Poems		Template:Sfn
1961	58		Views of Jeopardy		Template:Sfn
1962	59		Manhattan Pastures		Template:Sfn
1963	60		The Breaking of the Day		Template:Sfn
1964	61		Dream Barker		Template:Sfn
1965	No winner selected				Template:Sfn
1966	62				Template:Sfn
1967	63		Coming Close and Other Poems		Template:Sfn
1968	64		Uranium Poems		Template:Sfn
1969	65		Collecting Evidence		Template:Sfn
1970	66		Lugging Vegetables to Nantucket		Template:Sfn
1971	67		Obscenities		Template:Sfn
1972	68		Field Guide		Template:Sfn
1973	69		Threats Instead of Trees		Template:Sfn
1974	70		Snow on Snow		Template:Sfn
1975	71		Gathering the Tribes		Template:Sfn
1976	72		Beginning with O		Template:Sfn
1977	73				Template:Sfn
1978	74		Natural Histories		Template:Sfn
1979	75		One Way to Reconstruct the Scene		Template:Sfn
1980	76		Green Soldiers		Template:Sfn
1981	77		Icehouse Lights		Template:Sfn
1982	78		Picture Bride		Template:Sfn
1983	79				Template:Sfn
1984	80		Navigable Waterways		Template:Sfn
1985	81		Terms to Be Met		Template:Sfn
1986	82		Above the Land		Template:Sfn
1987	83		To the Place of Trumpets		Template:Sfn
1988	84		Out of the Woods		Template:Sfn
1989	85		Hermit with Landscape		Template:Sfn
1990	86		Bears Dancing in the Northern Air		Template:Sfn
1991	87		Hands of the Saddlemaker		Template:Sfn
1992	88		Stone Crop		Template:Sfn
1993	89		Thinking the World Visible		Template:Sfn
1994	90		Living in the Resurrection		Template:Sfn
1995	91		Cities of Memory		Template:Sfn
1996	92		My Shining Archipelago		Template:Sfn
1997	No winner selected				Template:Sfn
1998	93		Shells		Template:Sfn
1999	94		Ultima Thule		Template:Sfn
2000	95		Lawrence Booth's Book of Visions		Template:Sfn
2001	96		Discography		Template:Sfn
2002	97		Famous Americans		Template:Sfn
2003	98				Template:Sfn
2004	99		Crush		Template:Sfn
2005	100		Green Squall		Template:Sfn
2006	101		Frail-Craft		Template:Sfn
2007	102		The Earth in the Attic		Template:Sfn
2008	103		It Is Daylight		Template:Sfn
2009	104		Juvenilia		Template:Sfn
2010	105		Radial Symmetry		Template:Sfn
2011	106		Slow Lightning		Template:Sfn
2012	107		Westerly		Template:Sfn
2013	108		Eruv		Template:Sfn
2014	109		Blue Yodel		Template:Sfn
2015	110				Template:Sfn
2016	111		simulacra		Template:Sfn
2017	112	Duy Doan	We Play a Game		Template:Sfn
2018	113	Yanyi			Template:Sfn
2019	114	Jill Osier			Template:Sfn
2020	115	Desiree C. Bailey	What Noise Against The Cane
2021	116	Robert Wood Lynn	Mothman Apologia		Template:Sfn
2022	117	Mary-Alice Daniel	Mass for Shut-Ins		Template:Sfn
2023	118	Cindy Juyoung Ok	Ward Toward		Template:Sfn
2024	119	John Liles	Bees, and After		Template:Sfn
2025	120	Isabel Neal	Thrown Voice		Template:Sfn

See also

• American poetry
• List of poetry awards
• List of literary awards
• List of years in poetry
• List of years in literature

External links

• Official website