The Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry is awarded biennially by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

on behalf of the nation in recognition for the most distinguished book of poetry written by an American and published during the preceding two years. The award is overseen by the Library of Congress

Center for the Book The Center for the Book was founded in 1977 by Daniel J. Boorstin, the Librarian of Congress, to promote literacy, libraries, and reading and an understanding of the history and heritage of American literature. The Center for the Book is mainly su ...

The Prize

The $10,000 prize winner is chosen by a three-member jury appointed by a selection committee composed of the

Librarian of Congress The Librarian of Congress is the head of the Library of Congress, appointed by the president of the United States with the advice and consent of the United States Senate, for a term of ten years. In addition to overseeing the library, the Libra ...

, the

Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry The Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress—commonly referred to as the United States Poet Laureate—serves as the official poet of the United States. During their term, the poet laureate seeks to raise the national cons ...

, a publisher named by the

Academy of American Poets The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outreac ...

and a literary critic nominated by the Bobbitt family. Awarded for "the Most Distinguished Book of Poetry Published in 2006 or 2007, OR For Lifetime Achievement in Poetry", nominations come from publishers, and is given only to living American poets. The criteria for the award are that a nomination must be a poet's first poetry book or a book composed of new work of any length. Collected or selected works qualify only if they include at least thirty new poems previously unpublished in book form with prior publication in print media being acceptable. At the sole discretion of the judging panel, they may instead award the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry. There is no formal nomination process for this award and to date it has been given three times.

History

Mrs. Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt was the younger sister of

Lyndon B. Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...

, 36th President of the United States. Born in 1910 in

Stonewall, Texas Stonewall is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Gillespie County, Texas, United States. The population was 525 at the 2010 census. It was named for Confederate General Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson, by Israel P. Nu ...

, she worked in the cataloging department of the Library of Congress in the 1930s before her brother entered politics. Whilst there, she met college student Oscar Price (O.P) Bobbitt, who also worked in the department. Bobbitt courted Rebekah with love poems typed on index cards and passed secretly to her under the nose of supervisors. After marrying, they returned to Texas and began a family. She died in 1978. Established in her memory in 1988 by her son, Professor Philip C. Bobbitt, and her husband, the Bobbitt prize was the first national poetry award given in almost 40 years. In 1949, Congress placed a 40-year ban on Library prizes following controversy over the Library's awarding of the 1948 Bollingen National Prize for Poetry to

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...

for his '' Pisan Cantos''. Following the public outcry at the time of the award to Pound, the Joint Congressional Committee on the Library of Congress in 1949 adopted a policy prohibiting the Library henceforth from granting any more awards or prizes.

James H. Billington James Hadley Billington (June 1, 1929 – November 20, 2018) was an American academic and author who taught history at Harvard and Princeton before serving for 42 years as CEO of four federal cultural institutions. He served as the 13th Librarian ...

, the Librarian of Congress, is quoted as stating: "The family relation to the Library is a great love story and it is too good not to want to savor, commemorate and celebrate." Three-time Poet Laureate,

Robert Pinsky Robert Pinsky (born October 20, 1940) is an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator. From 1997 to 2000, he served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Pinsky is the author of nineteen books, most of ...

, said of the Prize in 2000, "I don't know of any other literary prize that has such a high standard."

Winners

*1990 –

James Merrill James Ingram Merrill (March 3, 1926 – February 6, 1995) was an American poet. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1977 for ''Divine Comedies.'' His poetry falls into two distinct bodies of work: the polished and formalist lyri ...

for ''The Inner Room'' *1992 –

Louise Glück Louise Elisabeth Glück ( ; born April 22, 1943) is an American poet and essayist. She won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature, whose judges praised "her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal". He ...

for ''Ararat'' and

Mark Strand Mark Strand (April 11, 1934 – November 29, 2014) was a Canadian-born American poet, essayist and translator. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1990 and received the Wallace Stevens Award in 2004 ...

for ''The Continuous Life'' *1994 –

A. R. Ammons Archibald Randolph Ammons (February 18, 1926 – February 25, 2001) was an American poet who won the annual National Book Award for Poetry in 1973 and 1993. Poetic themes Ammons wrote about humanity's relationship to nature in alternately comi ...

for ''Garbage'' *1996 –

Kenneth Koch Kenneth Koch ( ; 27 February 1925 – 6 July 2002) was an American poet, playwright, and professor, active from the 1950s until his death at age 77. He was a prominent poet of the New York School of poetry. This was a loose group of poets includ ...

for ''One Train'' *1998 –

Frank Bidart Frank Bidart (born May 27, 1939) is an American academic and poet, and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Biography Bidart is a native of California and considered a career in acting or directing when he was young. In 1957, he began to s ...

for ''Desire'' *2000 – David Ferry for ''Of No Country I Know: New and Selected Poems and Translations'' *2002 –

Alice Fulton Alice Fulton (born 1952) is an American author of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Fulton is the Ann S. Bowers Professor of English Emerita at Cornell University. Her awards include the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, ...

for ''Felt'' *2004 –

B. H. Fairchild B.H. Fairchild (born 1942) is an American poet and former college professor. His most recent book is ''An Ordinary Life'' (W.W. Norton, 2023), and his poems have appeared in literary journals and magazines including ''The New Yorker'', ''The Pari ...

for ''Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest'' *2006 –

W. S. Merwin William Stanley Merwin (September 30, 1927 – March 15, 2019) was an American poet who wrote more than fifty books of poetry and prose, and produced many works in translation. During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin's unique craft was thema ...

for ''Present Company'' *2008 – Charles Wright for Lifetime Achievement and

Bob Hicok Bob Hicok (born 1960 Grand Ledge, Michigan) is an American poet. Life Hicok is a professor of creative writing at Virginia Tech. He is from Michigan and before teaching owned and ran a successful automotive die design business. He formerly taught ...

for ''This Clumsy Living'' *2010 –

Lucia Perillo Lucia Maria Perillo (September 30, 1958 – October 16, 2016) was an American poet. In 2000, Perillo was recognized with a "genius grant" as part of the MacArthur Fellows Program. Life and career Perillo was born in Manhattan on September 30, 19 ...

for ''Inseminating the Elephant'' *2012 –

Gerald Stern Gerald Daniel Stern (February 22, 1925 – October 27, 2022) was an American poet, essayist, and educator. The author of twenty collections of poetry and four books of essays, he taught literature and creative writing at Temple University, Indi ...

for ''Early Collected Poems: 1965–1992'' *2014 – Patricia Smith for ''Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah'' *2016 –

Claudia Rankine Claudia Rankine (; born September 4, 1963) is an American poet, essayist, playwright and the editor of several anthologies. She is the author of five volumes of poetry, two plays and various essays. Her book of poetry, '' Citizen: An American L ...

for ''Citizen: An American Lyric'' and

Nathaniel Mackey Nathaniel Mackey is an American poet, novelist, anthologist, literary critic and editor. He is the Reynolds Price Professor of Creative Writing at Duke University and a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets. Mackey is currently teaching a ...

for Lifetime Achievement *2018 –

Jorie Graham Jorie Graham (; born May 9, 1950) is an American poet. The Poetry Foundation called Graham "one of the most celebrated poets of the American post-war generation." She replaced poet Seamus Heaney as Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at ...

for ''Fast'' *2020 –

Terrance Hayes Terrance Hayes (born November 18, 1971) is an American poet and educator who has published seven poetry collections. His 2010 collection, ''Lighthead'', won the National Book Award for Poetry in 2010. In September 2014, he was one of 21 recipient ...

for ''American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin'' and

Natasha Trethewey Natasha Trethewey (born April 26, 1966) is an American poet who was appointed United States Poet Laureate in 2012 and again in 2013. She won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her 2006 collection ''Native Guard'', and she is a former Poet L ...

for Lifetime Achievement

References

{{reflist, 2

External links

The Poetry and Literature Center of the Library of Congress
American poetry awards

The Prize

History

Winners

See also

References

External links