Academy of American Poets Receives Gift from the Louise Bogan Charitable Trust to Establish New Award Honoring Poet-Critics
New York, NY (April 29, 2026)—The Academy of American Poets announces a legacy gift from the Louise Bogan Charitable Trust to establish an endowed award that recognizes and supports outstanding poet-critics and their contributions to American poetry. Inspired by Bogan’s work as both a poet and critic, the prize will honor Bogan’s lasting impact on poetry and poetry criticism.
The Louise Bogan Award for Poetry and Criticism will carry a $5,000 award, and recipients will be selected annually by the Academy of American Poets’ Board of Chancellors. The first winner will be announced during National Poetry Month in April 2027. There is no submission process.
Louise Bogan, a Chancellor Emerita of the Academy of American Poets and the fourth Consultant in Poetry (now U.S. Poet Laureate) at the Library of Congress, was a lauded poet who received Yale University’s Bollingen Prize for Poetry in 1955 and the Academy of American Poets’ Fellowship in 1959, among other honors. She was also an acclaimed critic. A longtime poetry reviewer for The New Yorker, Bogan played a defining role in elevating poetry criticism as both a literary and intellectual practice. The new award will celebrate her legacy by recognizing poets whose critical work fosters greater public engagement with poetry.
“Louse Bogan’s poems probed the deepest recesses of the human heart with a breathtaking formal perfection,” said Elizabeth Frank, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her biography Louise Bogan: A Portrait and the Joseph E. Harry Professor of Modern Languages and Literature at Bard College. “As a critic, she brought elegance of expression and profound discrimination to her explorations of the poet’s vocation, following with brilliant insight the achievement of poets both modern and contemporary, major and minor. This award honors not only Bogan but also the tradition of poets who as critics contribute to our understanding of poetry, an art as old as civilization itself.”
In addition to the award endowment, the Academy has received Bogan’s typewriter, a significant literary artifact that will join the organization’s archive collection and serve as a tangible link to her life and work.
“Louise Bogan was a model both as one of our country’s great poets and also equally as a critic of poetry—part of a long and necessary tradition,” said Carolyn Forché, Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. “She was dedicated to illuminating the experience of reading a poem and teasing out the interstices of music and meaning. We are fortunate indeed that the Louise Bogan Charitable Trust has chosen to honor this legacy by bequeathing deserved recognition to poets who are practicing critics.”
About the Academy of American Poets
Founded in 1934, the Academy of American Poets is a leading publisher of contemporary poetry in the United States. The organization annually awards more than $1.3 million to poets at various stages of their careers through its prize program. It also produces Poets.org, the world’s largest publicly funded website for poets and poetry; organizes National Poetry Month each April; publishes the Poem-a-Day series and American Poets magazine; provides free resources to educators; hosts public poetry programs and special events; and coordinates a national Poetry Coalition that promotes the value poets bring to our culture. To learn more about the Academy of American Poets, including its staff, its Board of Directors, and its Board of Chancellors, visit Poets.org.
For more information and requests:
Peggy Ryan, Senior Manager of Marketing and Communications
212-274-0343
[email protected]