| | 1922 Collected Poems by Edwin Arlington Robinson (Macmillan) |
| | 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 (Harper) |
| | 1924 New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes by Robert Frost (Holt) |
| | 1925 The Man Who Died Twice by Edwin Arlington Robinson (Macmillan) |
| | 1926 What's O'Clock by the late Amy Lowell (Houghton) |
| | 1927 Fiddler's Farewell by Leonora Speyer (Knopf) |
| | 1928 Tristram by Edwin Arlington Robinson (Macmillan) |
| | 1929 John Browns Body by Stephen Vincent Benet (Farrar) |
| | 1930 Selected Poems by Conrad Aiken (Scribner) |
| | 1931 Collected Poems by Robert Frost (Holt) |
| | 1932 The Flowering Stone by George Dillon (Viking) |
| | 1933 Conquistador by Archibald Macleish (Houghton) |
| | 1934 Collected Verse by Robert Hillyer (Knopf) |
| | 1935 Bright Ambush by Audrey Wurdemann (John Day) |
| | 1936 Strange Holiness by Robert P. Tristram Coffin (Macmillan) |
| | 1937 A Further Range by Robert Frost (Holt) |
| | 1938 Cold Morning Sky by Marya Zaturenska (Macmillan) |
| | 1939 Selected Poems by John Gould Fletcher (Farrar) |
| | 1940 Collected Poems by Mark Van Doren (Holt) |
| | 1941 Sunderland Capture by Leonard Bacon (Harper) |
| | 1942 The Dust Which Is God by William Rose Benet (Dodd) |
| | 1943 A Witness Tree by Robert Frost (Holt) |
| | 1944 Western Star by the late Stephen Vincent Benet (Farrar) |
| | 1945 V-Letter and Other Poems by Karl Shapiro (Reynal) |
| | 1946 (No Award) |
| | 1947 Lord Weary's Castle by Robert Lowell (Harcourt) |
| | 1948 The Age of Anxiety by W. H. Auden (Random) |
| | 1949 Terror and Decorum by Peter Viereck (Scribner) |
| | 1950 Annie Allen by Gwendolyn Brooks (Harper) |
| | 1951 Complete Poems by Carl Sandburg (Harcourt) |
| | 1952 Collected Poems by Marianne Moore (Macmillan) |
| | 1953 Collected Poems 1917-1952 by Archibald MacLeish (Houghton) |
| | 1954 The Waking by Theodore Roethke (Doubleday) |
| | 1955 Collected Poems by Wallace Stevens (Knopf) |
| | 1956 Poems - North & South by Elizabeth Bishop (Houghton) |
| | 1957 Things of This World by Richard Wilbur (Harcourt) |
| | 1958 Promises: Poems 1954-1956 by Robert Penn Warren (Random) |
| | 1959 Selected Poems 1928-1958 by Stanley Kunitz (Little) |
| | 1960 Heart's Needle by W. D. Snodgrass (Knopf) |
| | 1961 Times Three: Selected Verse From Three Decades by Phyllis McGinley (Viking) |
| | 1962 Poems by Alan Dugan (Yale Univ. Press) |
| | 1963 Pictures from Brueghel by the late William Carlos Williams (New Directions) |
| | 1964 At The End Of The Open Road by Louis Simpson (Wesleyan Univ. Press) |
| | 1965 77 Dream Songs by John Berryman (Farrar) |
| | 1966 Selected Poems by Richard Eberhart (New Directions) |
| | 1967 Live or Die by Anne Sexton (Houghton) |
| | 1968 The Hard Hours by Anthony Hecht (Atheneum) |
| | 1969 Of Being Numerous by George Oppen (New Directions) |
| | 1970 Untitled Subjects by Richard Howard (Atheneum) |
| | 1971 The Carrier of Ladders by William S. Merwin (Atheneum) |
| | 1972 Collected Poems by James Wright (Wesleyan Univ. Press) |
| | 1973 Up Country by Maxine Kumin (Harper) |
| | 1974 The Dolphin by Robert Lowell (Farrar) |
| | 1975 Turtle Island by Gary Snyder (New Directions) |
| | 1976 Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror by John Ashbery (Viking) |
| | 1977 Divine Comedies by James Merrill (Atheneum) |
| | 1978 Collected Poems by Howard Nemerov (Univ. of Chicago) |
| | 1979 Now and Then by Robert Penn Warren (Random) |
| | 1980 Selected Poems by Donald Justice (Atheneum) |
| | 1981 The Morning of the Poem by James Schuyler (Farrar, Straus) |
| | 1982 The Collected Poems by the late Sylvia Plath (a posthumous publication) (Harper & Row) |
| | 1983 Selected Poems by Galway Kinnell (Houghton Mifflin) |
| | 1984 American Primitive by Mary Oliver (Atlantic-Little, Brown) |
| | 1985 Yin by Carolyn Kizer (BOA Editions) |
| | 1986 The Flying Change by Henry Taylor (Louisiana State University Press) |
| | 1987 Thomas and Beulah by Rita Dove (Carnegie-Mellon University Press) |
| | 1988 Partial Accounts: New and Selected Poems by William Meredith (Alfred A. Knopf) |
| | 1989 New and Collected Poems by Richard Wilbur (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich) |
| | 1990 The World Doesn't End by Charles Simic (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich) |
| | 1991 Near Changes by Mona Van Duyn (Alfred A. Knopf) |
| | 1992 Selected Poems by James Tate (Wesleyan University Press) |
| | 1993 The Wild Iris by Louise Gluck (The Ecco Press) |
| | 1994 Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems by Yusef Komunyakaa (Wesleyan University Press/University Press of New England) |
| | 1995 The Simple Truth by Philip Levine (Alfred A. Knopf) |
| | 1996 The Dream of the Unified Field by Jorie Graham (The Ecco Press) |
| | 1997 Alive Together: New and Selected Poems by Lisel Mueller (Louisiana State University Press) |
| | 1998 Black Zodiac by Charles Wright (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) |
| | 1999 Blizzard of One by Mark Strand (Alfred A. Knopf) |
| | 2000 Repair by C.K. Williams (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) |
| | 2001 Different Hours by Stephen Dunn (W.W. Norton & Company) |
| | 2002 Practical Gods by Carl Dennis (Penguin Books) |
| | 2003 Moy Sand and Gravel by Paul Muldoon (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) |
| | 2004 Walking to Martha's Vineyard by Franz Wright (Alfred A. Knopf) |
| | 2005 Delights & Shadows by Ted Kooser (Copper Canyon Press) |
| | 2006 Late Wife by Claudia Emerson (Louisiana State University Press) |