"Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday" American Book Award: Allison Hedge Coke, "Dog Road Woman", Coffee House Press "American Book Award 1998" AML Award for poetry to Alex Caldiero for Various Atmospheres: Poems and Drawings Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: Sherod Santos, "Elegy for My Sister", and (separately) Neil Azevedo, "Caspar Hauser Songs" Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry: Frank Bidart, Desire National Book Award for poetry: Gerald Stern, This Time: New and Selected Poems Poet Laureate of Virginia: Joseph Awad, two year appointment 1998 to 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Charles Wright, Black Zodiac Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize: W.S. Merwin Wallace Stevens Award: A. R. Ammons William Carlos Williams Award: John Balaban, Locusts at the Edge of Summer: New and Selected Poems'', Judge: Robert Phillips Whiting Awards: Nancy Eimers, Daniel Hall, James Kimbrell, Charles Harper Webb, Greg Williamson Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets: Charles Simic Births Amanda Gorman, American poet Deaths Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article: January 23 — John Forbes, 47 (born 1915), Australian poet February 8 Enoch Powell, 85 (born 1912), British MP from 1950 to 1987, classicist and poet Niall Sheridan, 85 (born 1912), Irish poet, fiction writer and broadcaster March 23 — Hilda Morley, 81 (born 1916), American poet, after a fall April 19 — Octavio Paz, 84 (born 1914), Mexican writer, poet, diplomat and winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize in Literature April 21 — Ivan Chtcheglov, 65 (born 1933), French political theorist, activist and poet April 30 — Nizar Qabbani, 75 (born 1923), Syrian diplomat, poet and publisher of Arabic poetry May 29 — Philip O'Connor, 81 (born 1916), English writer and surrealist poet June 25 — John Malcolm Brinnin, 81 (born 1916), American poet and critic July 1 — Martin Seymour-Smith, 70 (born 1928), English poet, critic and biographer July 14 — Miroslav Holub, 75 (born 1923), Czech poet and immunologist July 28 — Zbigniew Herbert, 73 (born 1924), influential Polish poet, essayist and moralist August 26 — Ryūichi Tamura 田村隆, 75 (born 1923), Japanese Shōwa period poet, essayist and translator of English-language novels and poetry October 25 – Dick Higgins, 60 (born 1938), English-born poet, composer and early Fluxus artist with ties to the Language poets October 28 — Ted Hughes, 68 (born 1930), English poet, Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom since 1984 Date not known