Mission
The Poetry Society of America places poetry at the crossroads of American life. The PSA transforms public spaces into sites for imaginative encounters with poems, engages diverse and often underserved communities, amplifies the voices of poets around issues of common concern, and honors their aesthetic contributions to our lives.
Over A Century
October 10, 1910
First formal meeting of the Poetry Society of America held in New York at the National Arts Club. Forty of the country's leading poets and writers enroll as charter members.
1911
Ezra Pound attends a meeting on the eve of his journey to England.
1913
W.B. Yeats appears before the Society meeting and chants "The Dream of Wandering Aengus" to an enthralled audience.
March, 1915
Amy Lowell expounds her ideas on imagism before the Society.
1918
Board President Edward J. Wheeler finds a New York City patron of art who donates $500 to establish the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.
1922
Edwin Arlington Robinson wins the PSA $500 Annual Book Award for his Collected Poems.
1925
Countee Cullen is the recipient of the Witter Bynner Undergraduate Award. Langston Hughes wins the following year.
1929
The PSA Shelley Memorial Award is established. The first winner is Conrad Aiken.
1938
Padraic Colum is elected President of the Board of Governors.
1940
Robert Frost is announced as the Honorary President of the Society. Marianne Moore wins the Shelley Memorial Award.
1943
The Gold Medal is awarded to Edna St. Vincent Millay.
1944
E. E. Cummings is the recipient of the Shelley Memorial Award.
1951
Wallace Stevens receives the Gold Medal.
1952
Elizabeth Bishop wins the Shelley Memorial Award.
1957
Richard Wilbur is the recipient of the PSA Millay Award. Randall Jarrell appears before the Society at the annual dinner.
1961
Theodore Roethke wins the Shelley Memorial Award.
1968
Jean Garrigue wins the PSA Melville Cane award for her New and Selected Poems.
1975
Gwendolyn Brooks wins the Shelley Memorial Award.
1985
William Matthews is elected President of the Board of Governors. Robert Pinsky is the recipient of the William Carlos Williams Award.
1992
Molly Peacock, Board President, and Elise Paschen, Executive Director, inspired by the London program, Poems on the Underground, establish a similar program in New York City, Poetry in Motion®.
1999
Hettie Jones wins the Norma Farber First Book Award.
2001
William Louis-Dreyfus is elected President of the Board of Governors. Alice Quinn is appointed Executive Director. Sonia Sanchez is awarded the Frost Medal.
November, 2001
"In a Time of Crisis," a reading of poems at Cooper Union following the September 11th attacks, draws an audience of 900 and is featured in The New York Times.
2002
The PSA Chapbook Fellowship Program is established.
2003
The biennial PSA Festival of New American Poets is established. Lawrence Ferlinghetti is the Frost Medalist.
2005
The PSA's 95th anniversary dinner at the Pierre Hotel features the living U. S. Poets Laureate.
2007
Ruth Kaplan is elected President of the Board of Governors.
2008
Michael S. Harper receives the Frost Medal.
2010
Lucille Clifton is chosen as the PSA's Centennial Frost Medalist.
2016
Kimiko Hahn is elected President of the Board of Governors.
2017
Launched the inaugural Four Quartets Prize for a unified and complete sequence of poems with a prize of $20,000.
2018
Introduced the Anna Rabinowitz Prize for interdisciplinary work. Partnered with Citymeals on "Poems on Wheels" which delivers poems to the elderly.
2019
PSA honors Paul Simon for his influential and iconic songwriting and Alice Quinn for holding poetry aloft throughout her remarkable career as Executive Director of the PSA.
2019
Matt Brogan is named Executive Director of the Poetry Society of America.