Poetry Foundation Announces 2025 Recipients of the 21st Annual Pegasus Awards 

CHICAGO, September 10, 2025—The Poetry Foundation is proud to announce the recipients of the 2025 Pegasus Awards, a suite of literary prizes established by the Foundation in 2004: 

• Rigoberto González, 2025 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize
• Amy Stolls, 2025 Pegasus Award for Service in Poetry
• Kazim Ali, 2025 Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism

The recipients will be honored at the Pegasus Awards ceremony in Chicago in October 2025. Additionally, they will read together at the 2025 Pegasus Awards Reading, a free public event at the Poetry Foundation on October 24, 2025.

“It is the Poetry Foundation’s great honor to recognize the extraordinary talents of Rigoberto González, Amy Stolls, and Kazim Ali for dedicating their lives and careers to supporting poetry,” said Poetry Foundation president and CEO, Michelle T. Boone. "I, along with the Poetry Foundation staff and board of trustees, commend them for inspiring hope and enriching our lives through their art, service, and scholarship.”

Rigoberto González Wins Lifetime Achievement Award
The Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize recognizes a living United States poet for outstanding lifetime achievement with an award of $100,000. Presented annually, it is one of the most prestigious honors awarded to poets and is one of the nation’s largest literary cash prizes.

Over the past three decades, Rigoberto González has written 17 books in nearly every genre imaginable, from criticism to memoir and fiction to books for children. The Poetry Foundation is honoring him for his poetry, which Poetry magazine editor Adrian Matejka describes as “sumptuous and rich in its curiosities and carnalities.”

Matejka goes on to say, “There is wonder abounding in González’s poems, but not at the expense of clarity. He is both a creator of poems and a creator of space for others through his mentorship, critical work, and anthologies, most recently Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology. His work on and off the page has inspired generations of writers and shown them the true power of literature.”

González was born in Bakersfield, California, and raised in Michoacán, Mexico. He earned a BA from the University of California, Riverside and graduate degrees from University of California, Davis and Arizona State University. A former critic at large for the LA Times and contributing editor for Poets & Writers, González is the series editor for the Camino del Sol Latinx Literary Series at the University of Arizona Press. He is currently distinguished professor of English and creative writing at Rutgers University-Newark.

Pegasus Award for Service in Poetry Recognizes Amy Stolls
The Pegasus Award for Service in Poetry is bestowed in recognition of commitment and extraordinary work in poetry and the literary arts through administration, advocacy, education, publishing, or service. The award includes a cash prize of $25,000, awarded annually.

In 2025, Amy Stolls completed 26 years of distinguished service at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), where she steadfastly championed writers, readers, publishers, translators, and literary institutions. 

Joining the NEA’s Literature Office in 1998, Stolls oversaw major programs, including the NEA Creative Writing Fellowships program, Poetry Out Loud, the Big Read, and the National Book Festival, advising on thousands of proposals and moderating panels nationwide. Prior to her time at the NEA, Stolls taught literature at American University in Washington, D.C., and worked as an environmental journalist in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of two novels: Palms to the Ground and The Ninth Wife.

Kazim Ali Receives Award for Work of Poetry Criticism
The Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism is an annual $10,000 cash prize that commends an outstanding book-length work of criticism published in the United States in the prior calendar year.

Kazim Ali’s Black Buffalo Woman: An Introduction to the Poetry and Poetics of Lucille Clifton is a revelatory and deeply researched exploration of Lucille Clifton’s extraordinary poetic legacy. Describing the book as an invitation into Clifton’s poems, Ali opens the door for readers to engage more deeply with her formal range, fierce clarity, and spiritual depth.

Ali has published six poetry collections, including The Far Mosque, which won Alice James Books’ New England/New York Award, and six works of prose, including Northern Light: Power, Land, and the Memory of Water, winner of the Banff Mountain Book Award in Environmental Literature. Ali was born in the United Kingdom to Muslim parents of Indian descent and has lived transnationally in the United States, Canada, India, France, and the Middle East. He is currently a professor of literature and creative writing at the University of California, San Diego.

Eleni Stecopoulos was the 2025 Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism finalist for her book Dreaming in the Fault Zone: A Poetics of Healing.

About the Poetry Foundation
The Poetry Foundation recognizes the power of words to transform lives. The Foundation works to amplify poetry and celebrate poets by fostering spaces for all to create, experience, and share poetry. Follow the Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Media Contact
Liz O’Connell-Thompson, Media Manager, eoconnellthompson@poetryfoundation.org