The Kingsley & Kate Tufts Poetry awards – based at Claremont Graduate University – are not only two of the most prestigious prizes a contemporary poet can receive, they also come with hefty purses: $100,000 for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and $10,000 for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. This makes the Kingsley Tufts award the world’s largest monetary prize for a single collection of poetry. And
for most poets who have just published their first collection of verse, $10,000 should keep the pen scribbling. Kingsley Tufts Award Winners:
2017: Vievee Francis, Forest Primeval
2016: Ross Gay, catalog of unabashed gratitude
2015: Angie Estes, Enchantee
2014: Afaa Michael Weaver, The Government of Nature
2013: Marianne Boruch, The Book of Hours
2012: Timothy Donnelly, The Cloud Corporation
2011: Chase Twichell, Horses Where Answers Should Have Been
2010: D. Powell, Chronic
2009: Matthea Harvey, Modern Life
2008: Tom Sleigh, Space Walk
2007: Rodney Jones, Salvation Blues
2006: Lucia Perillo, Luck Is Luck
2005: Michael Ryan, New and Selected Poems
2004: Henri Cole, Middle Earth
2003: Linda Gregerson, Waterborne
2002: Carl Phillips, The Tether
2001: Alan Shapiro, The Dead Alive and Busy
2000: Robert Wrigley, Reign of Snakes
1999: B.H. Fairchild, The Art of the Lathe
1998: John Koethe, Falling Water
1997: Campbell McGrath, Spring Comes to Chicago
1996: Deborah Digges, Rough Music
1995: Thomas Lux, Split Horizon
1994: Yusef Komunyakaa, Neon Vernacular
1993: Susan Mitchell, Rapture
Kate Tufts Award Winners:
2017: Phillip B. Williams, Thief in the Interior
2016: Danez Smith, [insert] boy
2015: Brandon Som, The Tribute Horse
2014: Yona Harvey, Hemming the Water
2013: Heidy Steidlmayer, Fowling Piece
2012: Katherine Larson, Radial Symmetry
2011: Atsuro Riley, Romey's Order
2010: Beth Bachmann, Temper
2009: Matthew Dickman, All-American Poem
2008: Janice N. Harrington, Even the Hollow My Body Made is Gone
2007: Eric McHenry, Potscrubber Lullabies
2006: Christian Hawkey, The Book of Funnels
2005: Patrick Phillips, Chattahoochee
2004: Adrian Blevins, The Brass Girl Brouhaha
2003: Joanie Mackowski, The Zoo
2002: Cate Marvin, World's Tallest Disaster
2001: Jennifer Clarvoe, Invisible Tender
2000: Terrance Hayes, Muscular Music
1999: Barbara Ras, Bite Every Sorrow
1998: Charles Harper Webb, Reading the Water
1997: Lucia Perillo, The Body Mutinies
1996: Barbara Hamby, Delirium
1995: Doug Anderson, The Moon Reflected Fire
1994: Catherine Bowman, 1-800-HOT-RIBS
