Announcing the 2018 Frost Medalist, Ron Padgett

The Poetry Society of America is honored to announce that Ron Padgett is the 2018 recipient of the organization's highest award, the Frost Medal, presented annually for distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry. Previous winners of this award include Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, Gwendolyn Brooks, Allen Ginsberg, Adrienne Rich, Barbara Guest, Lucille Clifton, Michael S. Harper, Marilyn Nelson, and Susan Howe.

Ron Padgett was born in 1942 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is the author of over two dozen books including his Collected Poems(Coffee House Press, 2013), which received the L. A. Times Book Prize and the Poetry Society of America's William Carlos Williams Prize, selected by Thomas Lux. He has published numerous volumes of translations including work by Guillaume Apollinaire, Blaise Cendrars, and Pierre Reverdy. In addition he has published Ted: A Personal Memoir of Ted Berrigan and Joe: A Memoir of Joe Brainard. His many honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the American Academy of Arts and Letters poetry award, the Shelley Memorial Award, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. Padgett's How Long was a 2012 Pulitzer Prize finalist in poetry. He has also been a teacher, director of the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church, and publications director of Teachers & Writers Collaborative.

The 2018 Annual Awards ceremony, which will honor Ron Padgett and celebrate the winners of the Poetry Society of America's 11 other annual awards will take place on April 10th, 2018 at The National Arts Club in New York City.

The Poetry Society of America, the nation's oldest poetry organization, was founded in 1910 for the purpose of creating a public forum for the advancement, enjoyment, and understanding of poetry. Through a diverse array of programs, initiatives, contests, and awards, the PSA works to build a larger audience for poetry, to encourage a deeper appreciation of the art, and to place poetry at the crossroads of American life. The PSA's signature program is Poetry in Motion, featuring poems on transit systems across the country.