For a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author, Five thousand dollars ($5,000).
Awarded to "Alive Together: New and Selected Poems" by Lisel Mueller (Louisiana State University Press).
Also nominated as finalists in this category were: "The Figured Wheel" by Robert Pinsky (Farrar Straus Giroux), and "The Willow Grove" by Laurie Sheck (Alfred A. Knopf).