National Book Award for Poetry

2025

Patricia Smith

The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems

2024

Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

Something About Living

2023

Craig Santos Perez

from unincorporated territory

2022

John Keene

Punks: New & Selected Poems

2021

Martín Espada

Floaters

2020

Don Mee Choi

DMZ Colony

2019

Arthur Sze

Sight Lines

2018

Justin Phillip Reed

Indecency

2017

Frank Bidart

Half-light: Collected Poems 1965–2016

2016

Daniel Borzutzky

The Performance of Becoming Human

2015

Robin Coste Lewis

Voyage of the Sable Venus

2014

Louise Glück

Faithful and Virtuous Night

2013

Mary Szybist

Incarnadine

2012

David Ferry

Bewilderment: New Poems and Translations

2011

Nikky Finney

Head Off & Split: Poems

2010

Terrance Hayes

Lighthead

2009

Keith Waldrop

Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy

2008

Mark Doty

Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems

2007

Robert Hass

Time and Materials: Poems 1997–2005

2006

Nathaniel Mackey

Splay Anthem

2005

W. S. Merwin

Migration: New and Selected Poems

2004

Jean Valentine

Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems 1965–2003

2003

C. K. Williams

The Singing

2002

Ruth Stone

In the Next Galaxy

2001

Alan Dugan

Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry

2000

Lucille Clifton

Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988–2000

1999

Ai

Vice: New and Selected Poems

1998

Gerald Stern

This Time: New and Selected Poems

1997

William Meredith

Effort at Speech: New and Selected Poems

1996

Hayden Carruth

Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey: Poems 1991–1995

1995

Stanley Kunitz

Passing Through: The Later Poems

1994

James Tate

Worshipful Company of Fletchers

1993

A. R. Ammons

Garbage

1992

Mary Oliver

New and Selected Poems

1991

Philip Levine

What Work Is

1983

Charles Wright

Country Music: Selected Early Poems

1983

Galway Kinnell

Selected Poems

1982

William Bronk

Life Supports: New and Collected Poems

1981

Lisel Mueller

The Need to Hold Still: Poems

1980

Philip Levine

Ashes: Poems New and Old

1979

James Merrill

Mirabell: Books of Number

1978

Howard Nemerov

The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov

1977

Richard Eberhart

Collected Poems

1976

John Ashbery

Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

1975

Marilyn Hacker

Presentation Piece

1974

Adrienne Rich

Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971–1972

1973

A. R. Ammons

Collected Poems 1951–1971

1972

Frank O'Hara

The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara

1971

Mona Van Duyn

To See

1970

Elizabeth Bishop

The Complete Poems

1969

John Berryman

His Toy

1968

Robert Bly

The Light Around the Body

1967

James Merrill

Nights and Days

1966

James Dickey

Buckdancer's Choice: Poems

1965

Theodore Roethke

The Far Field

1964

John Crowe Ransom

Selected Poems

1963

William Stafford

Traveling Through the Dark

1962

Alan Dugan

Poems

1961

Randall Jarrell

The Woman at the Washington Zoo: Poems and Translations

1960

Robert Lowell

Life Studies

1959

Theodore Roethke

Words for the Wind: Poems of Theodore Roethke

1958

Robert Penn Warren

Promises: Poems 1954–1956

1957

Richard Wilbur

Things of This World

1956

W. H. Auden

The Shield of Achilles

1955

Wallace Stevens

The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens

1954

Conrad Aiken

Collected Poems

1953

Archibald Mcleish

Collected Poems 1917–1952

1952

Marianne Moore

Collected Poems

1951

Wallace Stevens

The Auroras of Autumn

1950

William Carlos Williams

Paterson: Book Three and Selected Poems