The Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine have announced the winners of eight awards for contributions to Poetry over the past year, including two poets with ties to the University of Iowa.

The Levinson Prize, presented annually since 1914 through the generosity of the late Salmon O. Levinson and his family, in the amount of $500, was awarded to Dean Young, a former faculty member in the UI Writers’ Workshop, for his poems Handy Guide, Crash Test Dummies of an Imperfect God, and Dear Bob, in the November 2011 issue; Spring Reign in the February 2012 issue; and Peach Farm in the June 2012 issue. Young’s most recent book is Fall Higher (Copper Canyon Press, 2011). A collection of new and selected poems, Bender, is forthcoming.

Peter Cole, a poet and translator of Hebrew and Arabic and a 2007 Visitor to the UI International Writing Program, was awarded the John Frederick Nims Memorial Prize for translation, established in 1999 by Bonnie Larkin Nims, trustees of the Poetry Foundation and friends of the late poet, translator, and editor, also in the amount of $500. The award was given for Cole’s translation portfolio The Poetry of Kabbalah in the March 2012 issue of Poetry. Cole’s The Poetry of Kabbalah: Mystical Verse from the Jewish Tradition was published in March 2012 by Yale University Press.

Other award recipients are Linda Kunhardt (Bess Hokin Prize), Ange Mlinko (Frederick Bock Prize), Eduardo Corral (J. Howard and Barbara M.J. Wood Prize), Devin Johnston (the Friends of Literature Prize), Mary Ruefle (Editors Prize for Feature Article), and Adam Kirsch (Editors Prize for Reviewing). Read the full release here.

The 2012 prize-winning contributors join the company of such poets as John Berryman, E.E. Cummings, Robert Frost, Yusef Komunyakaa, Marianne Moore, Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, Anne Sexton, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and William Carlos Williams, among others.

The oldest of the magazine’s prizes still awarded today, the Levinson Prize has been presented annually since 1914. The first Levinson Prize was granted to Carl Sandburg for his “Chicago Poems” in the March 1914 issue. Other notable winners include Wallace Stevens (1920) for Anecdote of the Jar; Hart Crane (1930) for The Bridge; Marianne Moore (1933) for The Steeple-Jack and two other poems in the June 1932 issue; and E.E. Cummings (1939) for seven poems in the January 1939 issue, including love is more thicker than forget.

Founded in Chicago by Harriet Monroe in 1912, Poetry is the oldest monthly devoted to verse in the English-speaking world. For more information, please visit poetryfoundation.org.

The Iowa Writers’ Workshop is part of the UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The International Writing Program is part of the UI Graduate College.