Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize

In 1989, Mona Van Duyn received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from the Modern Poetry Association (now the Poetry Foundation), one of the largest and most prestigious poetry awards in the United States.[1][2][9] The prize honors a living U.S. poet for extraordinary lifetime achievement, and Van Duyn’s selection indicated that her work was viewed as central to the period’s poetic landscape.

The Ruth Lilly award carried substantial financial support, giving her increased freedom to write and travel for readings.[4][5] It also arrived just before the publication of Near Changes (1990), the collection that would earn her the Pulitzer Prize, suggesting that the literary community recognized the trajectory and importance of her work even before its most famous honors.[2][4]

For women’s history, the prize is notable because it confirmed that a woman who wrote extensively about marriage, family, and middle‑class life could be seen as a major architect of contemporary American poetry. The Lilly award, combined with her other honors, helped legitimize domestic and relational subject matter as central to the art form. It also demonstrated how philanthropic and institutional initiatives could materially support women’s creative labor at the highest level.