The Bollingen Prize for Poetry is a literary honor bestowed on an American

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

. Every two years, the award recognizes a poet for best new volume of work or lifetime achievement. It is awarded without nominations or submissions by the

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Inception and controversy

The prize was established in 1948 by

Paul Mellon Paul Mellon (June 11, 1907 – February 2, 1999) was an American philanthropist and a horse breeding, breeder of thoroughbred horse racing, racehorses. He is one of only five people ever designated an "Exemplar of Racing" by the National Muse ...

, funded by a

US $ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

10,000 grant from the

Bollingen Foundation The Bollingen Foundation was an educational foundation set up along the lines of a university press in 1945. It was named after Bollingen Tower, Carl Jung's country home in Bollingen, Switzerland. Funding was provided by Paul Mellon and his ...

to the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

. Both the prize and the foundation are named after the village of Bollingen, Switzerland and the Bollingen Tower, where Swiss psychiatrist

Carl Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and psychologist who founded the school of analytical psychology. A prolific author of Carl Jung publications, over 20 books, illustrator, and corr ...

had his home. The inaugural prize, chosen by a jury of Fellows in American Letters of the Library of Congress, was first awarded to

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an List of poets from the United States, American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Ita ...

for his collection of poems '' The Pisan Cantos''. The choice of a work by Ezra Pound who had been a committed

fascist Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural soci ...

sympathizer and who was then under indictment for treason in

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

for his

anti-Semitic Antisemitism or Jew-hatred is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Whether antisemitism is considered a form of racism depends on the school of thought. Antisemi ...

broadcasts infuriated many. A bitter controversy ensued in the press, and a congressional committee requested the Library of Congress disassociate itself from the award. The unused portion of the grant was returned to the Bollingen Foundation in 1949.McGuire, William (1982). ''Bollingen: An Adventure in Collecting the Past'' (Princeton University Press:Bollingen Series, New Jersey).McGuire, William (1988)
"Ezra Pound and Bollingen Prize controversy,"
in ''Poetry's Catbird Seat (the consultantship in poetry in the English language at the Library of Congress, 1937–1987)'' (Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.). . Online version retrieved November 10, 2007.

Continuance through the Yale University Library

The Bollingen Foundation decided to continue the program with the administrative tasks being handled by the

Library. The prize was awarded annually from 1948 to 1963. In 1963, the amount of the award was increased to $5,000. After 1963, it was given every other year. The Bollingen Foundation was dissolved in 1968, and the

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, commonly known as the Mellon Foundation, is a New York City-based private foundation with wealth accumulated by Andrew Mellon of the Mellon family of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is the product of the 1969 merger ...

took over funding. In 1973, the Mellon Foundation established an endowment of $100,000 to enable the Yale Library to continue awarding the prize in perpetuity. In 1961, a similar prize was set up by the Bollingen Foundation for best translation. The prize for best translation was given out only from 1961-1968. It was first won by Robert Fitzgerald for his translation of the ''

Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; ) is one of two major epics of ancient Greek literature attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest surviving works of literature and remains popular with modern audiences. Like the ''Iliad'', the ''Odyssey'' is divi ...

''. It has also been won by Walter W. Arndt for his translation of ''

Eugene Onegin ''Eugene Onegin, A Novel in Verse'' (, Reforms of Russian orthography, pre-reform Russian: Евгеній Онѣгинъ, романъ въ стихахъ, ) is a novel in verse written by Alexander Pushkin. ''Onegin'' is considered a classic of ...

'', and in 1963 by Richard Wilbur and Mona Van Duyn jointly.

Recipients

* 1948 –

* 1949 –

Wallace Stevens Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance compa ...

* 1950 – John Crowe Ransom * 1951 –

Marianne Moore Marianne Craig Moore (November 15, 1887 – February 5, 1972) was an American Modernism, modernist poet, critic, translator, and editor. Her poetry is noted for its formal innovation, precise diction, irony, and wit. In 1968 Nobel Prize in Li ...

* 1952 –

William Carlos Williams William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism. His '' Spring and All'' (1923) was written in the wake of T. S. Eliot's '' The Waste Land'' (1922). ...

* 1953 –

W. H. Auden Wystan Hugh Auden (; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973) was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry is noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, ...

* 1954 – Louise Bogan and Leonie Adams * 1955 – Conrad Aiken * 1956 –

Allen Tate John Orley Allen Tate (November 19, 1899 – February 9, 1979), known professionally as Allen Tate, was an American poet, essayist, social commentator, and poet laureate from 1943 to 1944. Among his best known works are the poems " Ode to th ...

* 1957 – E. E. Cummings * 1958 – Theodore Roethke * 1959 – Delmore Schwartz * 1960 –

Yvor Winters Arthur Yvor Winters (October 17, 1900 – January 25, 1968) was an American poet and literary critic. Life Winters was born in Chicago, Illinois and lived there until 1919 except for brief stays in Seattle and Pasadena, where his grandparents ...

* 1961 – John Hall Wheelock and Richard Eberhart * 1962 –

Robert Frost Robert Lee Frost (March26, 1874January29, 1963) was an American poet. Known for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American Colloquialism, colloquial speech, Frost frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New E ...

frequency changed—one award every two years going forward * 1965 – Horace Gregory * 1967 –

Robert Penn Warren Robert Penn Warren (April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989) was an American poet, novelist, literary critic and professor at Yale University. He was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern ...

* 1969 –

John Berryman John Allyn McAlpin Berryman (born John Allyn Smith, Jr.; October 25, 1914 – January 7, 1972) was an American poet and scholar. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and is considered a key figure in th ...

and Karl Shapiro * 1971 – Richard Wilbur and Mona Van Duyn * 1973 – James Merrill * 1975 – A. R. Ammons * 1977 – David Ignatow * 1979 – W. S. Merwin * 1981 –

Howard Nemerov Howard Nemerov (February 29, 1920 – July 5, 1991) was an American poet. Nemerov was the Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor of English and Distinguished Poet in Residence at Washington University in St. Louis. He was twice ...

and

May Swenson Anna Thilda May "May" Swenson (May 28, 1913 – December 4, 1989) was an American poet and playwright. Harold Bloom considered her one of the most important and original poets of the 20th century. Born to Margaret and Dan Arthur Swenson, she ...

* 1983 – Anthony Hecht and John Hollander * 1985 –

John Ashbery John Lawrence Ashbery (July 28, 1927 – September 3, 2017) was an American poet and art critic. Ashbery is considered the most influential American poet of his time. Oxford University literary critic John Bayley wrote that Ashbery "sounded, in ...

and Fred Chappell * 1987 –

Stanley Kunitz Stanley Jasspon Kunitz (; July 28, 1905May 14, 2006) was an American poet. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress twice, first in 1974 and then again in 2000. Biography Kunitz was born in Worcester, Massac ...

* 1989 – Edgar Bowers * 1991 – Laura Riding Jackson and Donald Justice * 1993 – Mark Strand * 1995 –

Kenneth Koch Kenneth Koch ( ; February 27, 1925 – July 6, 2002) was an American poet, playwright, and professor, active from the 1950s until his death at age 77.) He was a prominent poet of the New York School of poetry. This was a loose group of poets inc ...

* 1997 –

Gary Snyder Gary Snyder (born May 8, 1930) is an American poet, essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. His early poetry has been associated with the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance and he has been described as the "poet laureate ...

* 1999 – Robert Creeley * 2001 –

Louise Glück Louise Elisabeth Glück ( ; April 22, 1943 – October 13, 2023) was an American poet and essayist. She won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature, whose judges praised "her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existe ...

* 2003 –

Adrienne Rich Adrienne Cecile Rich ( ; May 16, 1929 – March 27, 2012) was an American poet, essayist and feminist. She was called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and was credited with bringing "the ...

* 2005 – Jay Wright * 2007 – Frank Bidart * 2009 – Allen Grossman * 2011 – Susan Howe * 2013 – Charles Wright * 2015 –

Nathaniel Mackey Nathaniel Mackey is an American poet, novelist, anthologist, literary critic and editor. He is the Reynolds Price Professor of Creative Writing at Duke University and a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets. Mackey is currently teachi ...

* 2017 – Jean Valentine * 2019 – Charles Bernstein * 2021 – Mei-mei Berssenbrugge * 2023 – Joy Harjo * 2025 – Arthur Sze

References

External links

* {{Jung American poetry awards Awards established in 1948 Yale University Library Awards and prizes of Yale University

Inception and controversy

Continuance through the Yale University Library

Recipients

See also

Lists

References

External links