The Pulitzer Prize in Poetry has been presented since 1922 for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author. However, special citations for poetry were presented in1918 and 1919.
1920s
- 1922:Collected Poems by Edwin Arlington Robinson
- 1923:The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver: A Few Figs from Thistles: Eight Sonnets in American Poetry, 1922. A Miscellany by Edna St. Vincent Millay
- 1924:New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes by Robert Frost
- 1925:The Man Who Died Twice by Edwin Arlington Robinson
- 1926:What’s O’Clock by Amy Lowell
- 1927:Fiddler’s Farewell by Leonora Speyer
- 1928:Tristram by Edwin Arlington Robinson
- 1929:John Brown’s Body by Stephen Vincent Benét
1930s
- 1930:Selected Poems by Conrad Aiken
- 1931:Collected Poems by Robert Frost
- 1932:The Flowering Stone by George Dillon
- 1933:Conquistador by Archibald MacLeish
- 1934:Collected Verse by Robert Hillyer
- 1935:Bright Ambush by Audrey Wurdemann
- 1936:Strange Holiness by Robert P.T. Coffin
- 1937:A Further Range by Robert Frost
- 1938:Cold Morning Sky by Marya Zaturenska
- 1939:Selected Poems by John Gould Fletcher
1940s
- 1940:Collected Poems by Mark Van Doren
- 1941:Sunderland Capture by Leonard Bacon
- 1942:The Dust Which Is God by William Rose Benet
- 1943:A Witness Tree by Robert Frost
- 1944:Western Star by Stephen Vincent Benét
- 1945:V-Letter and Other Poems by Karl Shapiro
- 1946: no award given
- 1947:Lord Weary’s Castle by Robert Lowell
- 1948:The Age of Anxiety by W. H. Auden
- 1949:Terror and Decorum by Peter Viereck
1950s
- 1950:Annie Allen by Gwendolyn Brooks
- 1951:Complete Poems by Carl Sandburg
- 1952:Collected Poems by Marianne Moore
- 1953:Collected Poems 1917-1952 by Archibald MacLeish
- 1954:The Waking by Theodore Roethke
- 1955:Collected Poems by Wallace Stevens
- 1956:Poems – North & South by Elizabeth Bishop
- 1957:Things of This World by Richard Wilbur
- 1958:Promises: Poems 1954-1956 by Robert Penn Warren
- 1959:Selected Poems 1928-1958 by Stanley Kunitz
1960s
- 1960:Heart’s Needle by W. D. Snodgrass
- 1961:Times Three: Selected Verse From Three Decades by Phyllis McGinley
- 1962:Poems by Alan Dugan
- 1963:Pictures from Brueghel by William Carlos Williams
- 1964:At The End Of The Open Road by Louis Simpson
- 1965:77 Dream Songs by John Berryman
- 1966:Selected Poems by Richard Eberhart
- 1967:Live or Die by Anne Sexton
- 1968:The Hard Hours by Anthony Hecht
- 1969:Of Being Numerous by George Oppen
1970s
- 1970:Untitled Subjects by Richard Howard
- 1971:The Carrier of Ladders by William S. Merwin
- 1972:Collected Poems by James Wright
- 1973:Up Country by Maxine Kumin
- 1974:The Dolphin by Robert Lowell
- 1975:Turtle Island by Gary Snyder
- 1976:Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror by John Ashbery
- 1977:Divine Comedies by James Merrill
- 1978:Collected Poems by Howard Nemerov
- 1979:Now and Then by Robert Penn Warren
1980s
- 1980:Selected Poems by Donald Justice
- 1981:The Morning of the Poem by James Schuyler
- 1982:The Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath
- 1983:Selected Poems by Galway Kinnell
- 1984:American Primitive by Mary Oliver
- 1985:Yin by Carolyn Kizer
- 1986:The Flying Change by Henry S. Taylor
- 1987:Thomas and Beulah by Rita Dove
- 1988:Partial Accounts: New and Selected Poems by William Meredith
- 1989:New and Collected Poems by Richard Wilbur
1990s
- 1990:The World Doesn’t End by Charles Simic
- 1991:Near Changes by Mona Van Duyn
- 1992:Selected Poems by James Tate
- 1993:The Wild Iris by Louise Glück
- 1994:Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems by Yusef Komunyakaa
- 1995:The Simple Truth by Philip Levine
- 1996:The Dream of the Unified Field by Jorie Graham
- 1997:Alive Together: New and Selected Poems by Lisel Mueller
- 1998:Black Zodiac by Charles Wright
- 1999:Blizzard of One by Mark Strand
2000s
- 2000:Repair by C. K. Williams
- 2001:Different Hours by Stephen Dunn
- 2002:Practical Gods by Carl Dennis
- 2003:Moy Sand and Gravel by Paul Muldoon
- 2004:Walking to Martha’s Vineyard by Franz Wright
- 2005:Delights & Shadows by Ted Kooser
- 2006:Late Wife by Claudia Emerson
- 2007:Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey
- 2008:Time and Materials by Robert Hass and Failure by Philip Schultz
- 2009:The Shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin
2010s
- 2010: Versed by Rae Armantrou
- 2011: The Best of It: New and Selected Poems by Kay Ryan
Christian Kresall 