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The Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition is an annual event of Yale University Press aiming to publish the first collection of a promising American poet. The contest was founded in 1919, and is the oldest annual literary award in the United States.

Each year Yale University Press seeks to publish one book-length manuscript by a United States citizen under the age of forty who has not previously published a book of poetry. The winner receives royalties upon publication of the book. All poems must be original, and only one manuscript may be entered at a time.

The contest is regarded by some to have been at its height from 1947 to 1959, when W. H. Auden was choosing the winners. His then-young poets included Adrienne Rich, James Wright, W. S. Merwin, John Ashbery, and John Hollander, all of whom became powerful voices in the poetry world. Though the period was also notable for the twice refusal of Sylvia Plath's Colossus, which was subsequently published in England.

In addition the Auden period, the 1969-1977 period, overseen by Stanley Kunitz, delivered two resonant voices to the contemporary era, Robert Hass in 1973 & Carolyn Forche in 1976, the former going on to become the Poet Laureate of the United States.

• 2006 — Jessica Fisher, Frail-Craft
• 2005 — Jay Hopler, Green Squall
• 2004 — Richard Siken, Crush
• 2003 — Peter Streckfus, The Cuckoo
• 2002 — Loren Goodman, Famous Americans
• 2001 — Sean Singer, Discography
• 2000 — Maurice Manning (poet), Lawrence Booth's Book of Visions
• 1999 — Davis McCombs, Ultima Thule
• 1998 — Craig Arnold, Shells
• 1997 — Talvikki Ansel, My Shining Archipelago
• 1996 — Ellen Hinsey, Cities of Memory
• 1995 — Tony Crunk, Living in the Resurrection
• 1994 — Valerie Wohlfeld, Thinking the World Visible
• 1993 — Jody Gladding, Stone Crop
• 1992 — Nick Samaras, Hands of the Saddlemaker
• 1990 — Daniel Hall, Hermit with Landscape
• 1989 — Thomas Bolt, Out of the Woods
• 1987 — Julie Agoos, Above the Land
• 1986 — Brigit Pegeen Kelly, To the Place of Trumpets
• 1983 — Richard Kenney, The Evolution of the Flightless Bird
• 1982 — Cathy Song, Picture Bride
• 1981 — John Bensko, Green Soldiers
• 1980 — William Virgil Davis, One Way to Reconstruct the Scene
• 1977 — Olga Broumas, Beginning with O
• 1976 — Carolyn Forché, Gathering the Tribes
• 1974 — Michael Ryan, Threats Instead of Trees
• 1973 — Robert Hass, Field Guide
• 1972 — Michael Casey, Obscenities

In earlier years, winners included James Agee (1934), Muriel Rukeyser, Margaret Walker, William Meredith, Alan Dugan (1961), Adrienne Rich (1951), John Ashbery (1956), John Hollander (1958), Jack Gilbert (1962), Peter Davison (1963), and James Tate (1967).

• The Yale Younger Poets Anthology (1998) edited by George Bradley

• American poetry
• List of poetry awards
• List of literature awards
• List of years in poetry
• List of years in literature

• Information on the competition from Yale University Press