For a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author, three thousand dollars ($3,000).

Awarded to The Dream of the Unified Field by Jorie Graham (The Ecco Press)

Jorie Graham accepts the 1996 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry from George Rupp, Columbia University President.

Finalists

Also nominated as finalists in this category were: "New and Selected Poems" by Donald Justice (Alfred A. Knopf), and "Chickamauga" by Charles Wright (Farrar Straus and Giroux).