2024's Most Prestigious Poetry Awards: The Biggest Prize
Poetry holds a special place in our cultural tapestry, having woven its way through history, shaping perspectives and sparking change.
While often overlooked, poetry stands as a potent form of expression, capable of stirring minds and hearts alike. As we venture into 2024, the world of poetry is ablaze with anticipation for the most prestigious poetry awards of the year.
Navigating the landscape of poetry awards can be daunting, with debates swirling about which accolades truly stand out.
This article aims to demystify the process, offering insights into the most esteemed awards of the year. Delving into each award’s background and criteria, we hope to equip you with the knowledge needed to explore these opportunities.
These awards not only celebrate excellence but also provide a platform for poets to shine. Whether you’re an aspiring poet seeking recognition or an admirer of poetic talent, this guide will illuminate the path to poetry’s highest honors. Join us as we uncover 2024’s best poetry awards.
Table of Contents
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are among the highest literary honours bestowed in the United States. The National Book Foundation (NBF), a non-profit organisation with goals to “….encourage the appreciation of excellent writing in the United States…and to keep books alive in the hearts and minds of Americans.” the award since 1950.
The Kingsley And Kate Tufts Poetry Awards
The Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Awards are a pair of American prizes based at Claremont Graduate University. The awards are given to two winners: $100,000 for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and $10,000 for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award.
Pulitzer Prize For Poetry
The Pulitzer Prize for poetry is awarded to a poet whose distinguished and growing body of work to date represents a unique and accomplished poetic sensibility. First awarded in 1922, it’s one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually for Letters, Drama, and Music.
Forward Prize For Poetry
The Forward Prize is a British literary prize awarded annually for the best poetry collection published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. It was established in 1992 and sponsored by “Forward Magazine” with a guaranteed £10,000.
The Griffin Poetry Prize
The Griffin Poetry Prize is a Canadian literary award for poetry, its richest prize with its $100,000 purse. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin to honour contemporary poetry in English worldwide. The awards are given to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in English.
James Laughlin Award
One of the most esteemed poetry awards, the James Laughlin Award, is given annually by The Academy of American Poets. The $5000 prize is the only award that is given to a poet for their second book.
The Robert Frost Medal
The Frost Medal is given annually by The Poetry Society of America. The Robert Frost Medal is given to individuals who have “rendered distinguished service to poetry.” The prize purse for this medal is $2500.
TS Eliot Prize
The Eliot Prize is a prestigious award for the best new poetry collection in English and published by the UK or Irish authors. It’s run by The T S Eliot Foundation who offer a grand prize of £25,000. Shortlisted finalists will also receive £1,500 for their poetry efforts as well!
Norma Farber First Book Award
The American Academy of Arts and Letters gives the Norma Farber First Book Award to recognise the outstanding quality and promise of the first book by an American poet. It comes with a $500 prize to encourage talented emerging poets.
Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize
The Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize is a poetry award given by the Poetry Foundation to a living U.S. poet whose lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition. The $100,000 cash prize is one of the most distinguished literary awards in the United States, and It has been called the “American Nobel”.
William Carlos Williams Award
The Poetry Society of America gives out the William Carlos Williams Award to acknowledge books published by small presses, non-profit organisations or universities. It is named after American poet William Carlos Williams and comes with $1000 prize money.
Pushcart Prize
The Pushcart Prize is a small press award that recognises the best poetry, short fiction and essays published in American publications over one calendar year. The winners don’t receive any money, and they get to be part of an elite group that their peers have recognised as being among today’s best writers in America.
United States Poet Laureate
The Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress is appointed by the Librarian of Congress and serves as the country’s official poet. The poet laureate is a figure who seeks to raise the national consciousness, and more specifically, poetry appreciation. This person’s service typically lasts one year, and they earn a salary of $35 000.
Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award
The Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award is an annual competition for English-language sonnets that draws 3000 entries. The award aims to bring greater public awareness for underrepresented but talented poets and offers a cash purse of $1000.
The National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle annually awards the finest books published in six categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Biography, Autobiography, Poetry and Criticism. Winners receive $10,000 and a bronze sculpture.
Bobbitt Prize
The biennial Bobbitt Prize is awarded to recognise a book of poetry written by an American and published during the preceding two years. The winner receives $10,000!
Lannan Literary Award
The Lannan Foundation offers many different prizes to recognise literary achievement, including several specifically for poetry. Established in 1989, The Lannan Literary Award is given to recognise excellence in literature. It had given 173 writers and poets over $13 million in awards since its inception 20 years ago.
Eric Gregory Award
The Eric Gregory Award is a British literary award given to poets under 30 annually with prize money totalling £24,000. The award was founded in 1960 by Dr Eric Gregory to support and encourage young poets who had not yet found success with any other awards or recognition but were developing their craft nonetheless, reminding them they are never too early or late for excellence!
Walt Whitman Award
The Walt Whitman Award is a prestigious award given to American poets who have not published a book. The winning book-length manuscript is awarded a $5000 cash prize, in addition to an all-expenses-paid six-week residency at the Civitella Ranieri Center in the Umbrian region of Italy.
The Writer Magazine/Emily Dickinson Award
The Writer Magazine/Emily Dickinson Award is granted once a year to a member of the Poetry Society of America in celebration of Emily Dickinson’s legacy and poetry, for a poem inspired by Dickinson but not particularly in her style,e. A $250 incentive is awarded to the winner.
Brunel International African Poetry Prize
The Brunel International African Poetry Prize (sponsored by Brunel University, London) is a £3,000 yearly poetry prize dedicated to cultivating, celebrating, and promoting African poetry. Poets born in Africa, are citizens of an African country or have African parents are eligible for the prize.
American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medals
Each year, the American Academy of Arts and Letters bestows two Gold Medals for outstanding achievement. The two awards are taken in rotation from categories including Drama and Graphic Art; History and Architecture; including Landscape Architecture; Fiction and Sculpture; Biography and Music; Belles Lettres and Criticism and Painting and Poetry and Music.
Donald Justice Poetry Prize
The Donald Justice Poetry Prize is an annual poetry competition for unpublished 50–100 typed page manuscripts of formal poetry, open to all American poets regardless of whether they have previously published a book-length collection. The reward is $1500 plus publication.
Bollingen Prize
Carrying a purse of $1000, The Bollingen Prize for Poetry is a literary award given to an American poet for the best book of new verse published in the previous two years or for lifetime achievement. It is given out every two years by Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Poetry Society of America Awards
The PSA’s Annual Awards are among the highest distinctions bestowed to poets. They provide recognition to both young and renowned poets at all phases of their careers, including a student poetry prize and book awards for publishers.
The Writer Magazine/Emily Dickinson Award: The Writer Magazine/Emily Dickinson Award is granted once a year to a member of the Poetry Society of America in celebration of Emily Dickinson’s legacy and poetry, for a poem inspired by Dickinson but not particularly in her style,e. A $250 incentive is awarded to the winner.
Cecil Hemley Memorial Award: The Cecil Hemley Memorial Award honours a living poet whose work has been deemed ‘notable’, and this award comes with $500 in cash.
Lyric Poetry Award: For a lyric poem on any subject. Winners receive a prize of $500.
Lucille Medwick Memorial Award: For a prose poem.-$500
Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award: For ten pages of poetry from a manuscript-in-progress.- $1000
George Bogin Memorial Award: For a selection of four or five poems that initially use language to reflect the ordinary and the extraordinary encounter and take a stand against oppression in any of its forms.-$500
Robert H. Winner Memorial Award: This annual award is given to a poet who has made an outstanding contribution to the genre. The winner will receive $2,500 and their work published by the Poetry Society of America! It is given annually to a poet over 40 who has published no more than one book.
The Popescu European Poetry Translation Prize
The Poetry Society gives the Popescu European Poetry Translation Award every two years for a renowned volume of poetry translated into English from a European language. The prize is worth £1000.
The Michael Marks Poetry Pamphlet Awards
The Michael Marks Poetry Pamphlet Awards are given out annually to pamphlets published in the United Kingdom. The awards are intended to encourage the pamphlet form and provide opportunities for poets and publishers to grow. The winning publisher will be awarded a $5,000 prize.
Arthur Rense Prize
Paige Rense founded the $20 000 Arthur Rense Prize in 1998 in memory of her husband, sportswriter and poet- Arthur Rense. The American Academy of Arts and Letters awards the prize every three years to an outstanding poet.
Alice James Award
In 1986, the press founded the Beatrice Hawley Award, known as the Alice James Award. It’s a nationwide publication prize accessible to poets at all stages of their careers. The winning poet will have their book published, promoted, and distributed around the country and earn $2,000 in prize money.
The Glascock Poetry Prize
The Kathryn Irene Glascock Poetry Contest is named after a bright young poet who graduated from Mount Holyoke in 1922 and died in 1923 from pneumonia. The competition was started by her parents in that year and became an intercollegiate event in 1924.
Faculty members select students, who are subsequently judged by a panel of three eminent poets. The Glascock Poetry Contest is the country’s oldest and longest-running poetry competition for undergraduate students in America.
Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize
The Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize is a British literary prize created in 1963 to honour Geoffrey Faber, the publisher’s founder and first Chairman. The prize money is £1500.
Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize
The University of Pittsburgh Press sponsors the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, which was founded in 1981. The prize is presented for a first full-length book of poems named after Agnes Lynch Starrett, the Press’s first director.
The award includes a $5,000 cash prize and publication in the Pitt Poetry Series by the University of Pittsburgh Press.
The Lambda Literary Awards
The Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry is given annually by the Lambda Literary Foundation to a gay-themed poetry book written by a male author.
The Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry
The Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry is given to a poet from any Commonwealth nation who has produced a book of poetry. The award was formerly exclusively accessible to British nationals residing in the United Kingdom, but in 1985 it was expanded to include persons from other Commonwealth countries.
The Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry
The Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry is an annual prize given out by the Sewanee Review and the University of the South to a poet who has had a long and illustrious career.
It was founded thanks to a donation from Dr K.P.A. Taylor, a poet and Conrad Aiken’s younger brother. In addition to the distinction, there is a $10,000 cash prize.
Harold Morton Landon Translation Award
This $1,000 prize honours a poetry volume published in the previous calendar year and translated into English from any language. It’s been granted every year since 1976. A distinguished translator chooses the winning novel.
The SFPA Rhysling Awards
Each year, the Rhysling Awards are given out for the best science fiction, fantasy, or horror poetry. The Rhyslings are named after a figure in a science fiction narrative, unlike most literary prizes, which are named after the award’s writer.
Richard Wilbur Award
The Richard Wilbur Award is an American poetry award and publishing prize given by the University of Evansville in Indiana. This biennial competition (awarded in even-numbered years) amongst all American poets awards publication of the winning manuscript by the University of Evansville Press and a monetary prize of $1000.
Conclusion
For poets aspiring to elevate their craft, the array of prestigious poetry awards in 2024 offers a promising starting point. From global recognition to local acclaim, the landscape of poetry awards has expanded significantly in recent times.
We encourage you to delve deeper into each award program, exploring the nuances that set them apart. Consider factors such as the award’s reach, its alignment with your poetic style, and the submission deadlines.
Additionally, remember the importance of self-promotion and timely submissions, as they can greatly impact your chances of success.
Thank you for exploring these prestigious poetry awards with us. May your poetic journey be filled with inspiration and recognition. Good luck!