Bollingen Prize

Bollingen Prize, award for achievement in American poetry, originally conferred by the Library of Congress with funds established in 1948 by the philanthropist Paul Mellon. An admirer of the psychoanalyst Carl Jung, Mellon named the prize after the Swiss town where Jung spent his summers. In 1949 the first award was made for The Pisan Cantos to Ezra Pound, who was then under indictment for treason in World War II for his broadcasts from Italy, which were anti-Semitic and pro-Fascist. A bitter controversy ensued in the press, and the Library of Congress was requested by a congressional committee to disassociate itself from the award. In 1950 it was transferred to the Yale University Library, under the auspices of which it has since been administered. Originally annual, it became biennial in 1964. In 1961 the Bollingen Foundation also established a prize for translation.

(Read Howard Nemerov’s Britannica essay on poetry.)

Winners of the Bollingen Prize are listed in the table.