National Book Award — Poetry

• The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems by Patricia Smith

  2025NBAPoetry
• Something About Living by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

  2024NBAPoetry
• from unincorporated territory by Craig Santos Perez

  2023NBAPoetry
• Punks: New & Selected Poems by John Keene

  2022NBAPoetry
• Floaters by Martín Espada

  2021NBAPoetry
• 
  DMZ Colony by Don Mee Choi

  2020NBAPoetry
• 
  Sight Lines by Arthur Sze

  2019NBAPoetry
• 
  Indecency by Justin Phillip Reed

  2018NBAPoetry
• 
  Half-light: Collected Poems 1965–2016† by Frank Bidart

  2017NBAPoetry
• 
  The Performance of Becoming Human by Daniel Borzutzky

  2016NBAPoetry
• 
  Voyage of the Sable Venus by Robin Coste Lewis

  2015NBAPoetry
• 
  Faithful and Virtuous Night by Louise Glück

  2014NBAPoetry
• 
  Incarnadine by Mary Szybist

  2013NBAPoetry
• 
  Bewilderment: New Poems and Translations by David Ferry

  2012NBAPoetry
• 
  Head Off & Split: Poems by Nikky Finney

  2011NBAPoetry
• 
  Lighthead by Terrance Hayes

  2010NBAPoetry
• Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy by Keith Waldrop

  2009NBAPoetry
• 
  Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems by Mark Doty

  2008NBAPoetry
• 
  Time and Materials: Poems, 1997–2005† by Robert Hass

  2007NBAPoetry
• 
  Splay Anthem by Nathaniel Mackey

  2006NBAPoetry
• 
  Migration: New and Selected Poems by W. S. Merwin

  2005NBAPoetry
• Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965–2003 by Jean Valentine

  2004NBAPoetry
• 
  The Singing by C. K. Williams

  2003NBAPoetry
• In the Next Galaxy by Ruth Stone

  2002NBAPoetry
• 
  Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry by Alan Dugan

  2001NBAPoetry
• 
  Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988–2000 by Lucille Clifton

  2000NBAPoetry
• 
  Vice: New and Selected Poems by Ai

  1999NBAPoetry
• 
  This Time: New and Selected Poems by Gerald Stern

  1998NBAPoetry
• 
  Effort at Speech: New and Selected Poems by William Meredith

  1997NBAPoetry
• 
  Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey: Poems, 1991–1995 by Hayden Carruth

  1996NBAPoetry
• 
  Passing Through: The Later Poems by Stanley Kunitz

  1995NBAPoetry
• Worshipful Company of Fletchers by James Tate

  1994NBAPoetry
• 
  Garbage by A. R. Ammons

  1993NBAPoetry
• 
  New and Selected Poems(vol. 1 of two) by Mary Oliver

  1992NBAPoetry
• 
  What Work Is by Philip Levine

  1991NBAPoetry
• Selected Poems † by Galway Kinnell

  1983NBAPoetry
• 
  Country Music: Selected Early Poems* by Charles Wright

  1983NBAPoetry
• 
  Life Supports: New and Collected Poems by William Bronk

  1982NBAPoetry
• 
  The Need to Hold Still: Poems by Lisel Mueller

  1981NBAPoetry
• 
  Ashes: Poems New and Old by Philip Levine

  1980NBAPoetry
• 
  Mirabell: Books of Number by James Merrill

  1979NBAPoetry
• 
  The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov† by Howard Nemerov

  1978NBAPoetry
• 
  Collected Poems, 1930–1976: Including 43 New Poems by Richard Eberhart

  1977NBAPoetry
• 
  Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror† by John Ashbery

  1976NBAPoetry
• 
  Presentation Piece by Marilyn Hacker

  1975NBAPoetry
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  The Fall of America: Poems of These States, 1965–1971 by Allen Ginsberg

  1974NBAPoetry
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  Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971–1972 by Adrienne Rich

  1974NBAPoetry
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  Collected Poems, 1951–1971 by A. R. Ammons

  1973NBAPoetry
• 
  The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara(posth.) by Frank O'Hara

  1972NBAPoetry
• 
  Selected Poems by Howard Moss

  1972NBAPoetry
• 
  To See, to Take: Poems by Mona Van Duyn

  1971NBAPoetry
• 
  The Complete Poems by Elizabeth Bishop

  1970NBAPoetry
• His Toy, His Dream, His Rest by John Berryman

  1969NBAPoetry
• 
  The Light Around the Body by Robert Bly

  1968NBAPoetry
• Nights and Days by James Merrill

  1967NBAPoetry
• 
  Buckdancer's Choice: Poems by James Dickey

  1966NBAPoetry
• The Far Field(posth.) by Theodore Roethke

  1965NBAPoetry
• 
  Selected Poems by John Crowe Ransom

  1964NBAPoetry
• Traveling Through the Dark by William Stafford

  1963NBAPoetry
• 
  Poems† by Alan Dugan

  1962NBAPoetry
• The Woman at the Washington Zoo: Poems and Translations by Randall Jarrell

  1961NBAPoetry
• Life Studies by Robert Lowell

  1960NBAPoetry
• 
  Words for the Wind: Poems of Theodore Roethke by Theodore Roethke

  1959NBAPoetry
• 
  Promises: Poems, 1954–1956 † by Robert Penn Warren

  1958NBAPoetry
• 
  Things of This World † by Richard Wilbur

  1957NBAPoetry
• The Shield of Achilles by W. H. Auden

  1956NBAPoetry
• The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens† by Wallace Stevens

  1955NBAPoetry
• 
  Collected Poems by Conrad Aiken

  1954NBAPoetry
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  Collected Poems, 1917–1952 † by Archibald MacLeish

  1953NBAPoetry
• 
  Collected Poems † by Marianne Moore

  1952NBAPoetry
• The Auroras of Autumn by Wallace Stevens

  1951NBAPoetry
• Paterson: Book ThreeandSelected Poems(two books) by William Carlos Williams

  1950NBAPoetry