Poetry
For a list of winners and finalists, see National Book Award for Poetry.| 1950 | William Carlos Williams | Paterson: Book Three and Selected Poems |
| 1951 | Wallace Stevens | The Auroras of Autumn |
| 1952 | Marianne Moore | Collected Poems |
| 1953 | Archibald MacLeish | Collected Poems, 1917-1952 |
| 1954 | Conrad Aiken | Collected Poems |
| 1955 | Wallace Stevens | The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens |
| 1956 | W. H. Auden | The Shield of Achilles |
| 1957 | Richard Wilbur | Things of This World |
| 1958 | Robert Penn Warren | Promises: Poems, 1954-1956 |
| 1959 | Theodore Roethke | Words for the Wind |
| 1960 | Robert Lowell | Life Studies |
| 1961 | Randall Jarrell | The Woman at the Washington Zoo |
| 1962 | Alan Dugan | Poems |
| 1963 | William Stafford | Traveling Through the Dark |
| 1964 | John Crowe Ransom | Selected Poems |
| 1965 | Theodore Roethke | The Far Field |
| 1966 | James Dickey | Buckdancer's Choice |
| 1967 | James Merrill | Nights and Days |
| 1968 | Robert Bly | The Light Around the Body |
| 1969 | John Berryman | His Toy, His Dream, His Rest |
| 1970 | Elizabeth Bishop | The Complete Poems |
| 1971 | Mona Van Duyn | To See, To Take |
| 1972 | Frank O'Hara | The Collected Works of Frank O'Hara |
| Howard Moss | Selected Poems | |
| 1973 | A. R. Ammons | Collected Poems, 1951-1971 |
| 1974 | Allen Ginsberg | The Fall of America: Poems of these States, 1965-1971 |
| Adrienne Rich | Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971-1972 | |
| 1975 | Marilyn Hacker | Presentation Piece |
| 1976 | John Ashbery | Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror |
| 1977 | Richard Eberhart | Collected Poems, 1930-1976 |
| 1978 | Howard Nemerov | The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov |
| 1979 | James Merrill | Mirabell: Book of Numbers |
| 1980 | Philip Levine | Ashes: Poems New and Old |
| 1981 | Lisel Mueller | The Need to Hold Still |
| 1982 | William Bronk | Life Supports: New and Collected Poems |
| 1983 | Galway Kinnell | Selected Poems |
| Charles Wright | Country Music: Selected Early Poems | |
| 1991 | Philip Levine | What Work Is |
| 1992 | Mary Oliver | New and Selected Poems |
| 1993 | A. R. Ammons | Garbage |
| 1994 | James Tate | A Worshipful Company of Fletchers |
| 1995 | Stanley Kunitz | Passing Through: The Later Poems |
| 1996 | Hayden Carruth | Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey |
| 1997 | William Meredith | Effort at Speech: New and Selected Poems |
| 1998 | Gerald Stern | This Time: New and Selected Poems |
| 1999 | Ai | Vice: New and Selected Poems |
| 2000 | Lucille Clifton | Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000 |
| 2001 | Alan Dugan | Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry |
| 2002 | Ruth Stone | In the Next Galaxy |
| 2003 | C. K. Williams | The Singing |
| 2004 | Jean Valentine | Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965-2003 |
| 2005 | W. S. Merwin | Migration: New and Selected Poems |
| 2006 | Nathaniel Mackey | Splay Anthem |
| 2007 | Robert Hass | Time and Materials: Poems, 1997-2005 |
| 2008 | Mark Doty | Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems |
| 2009 | Keith Waldrop | Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy |
| 2010 | Terrance Hayes | Lighthead |
| 2011 | Nikky Finney | Head Off & Split |
| 2012 | David Ferry | Bewilderment: New Poems and Translations |
Read more about this topic: List Of Winners Of The National Book Award, Current Award Categories
Famous quotes containing the word poetry:
“That was a way of putting it not very satisfactory:
A periphrastic study in a worn-out poetical fashion,
Leaving one still with the intolerable wrestle
With words and meanings. The poetry does not matter”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Like speaks to like only; labor to labor, philosophy to philosophy, criticism to criticism, poetry to poetry. Literature speaks how much still to the past, how little to the future, how much to the East, how little to the West.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Art, if one employs this term in the broad sense that includes poetry within its realm, is an art of creation laden with ideals, located at the very core of the life of a people, defining the spiritual and moral shape of that life.”
—Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1818–1883)