MacArthur poets

After learning yesterday that Heather McHugh is one of the 2009 recipients of a MacArthur Fellowship (better known as MacArthur Genius Award/Grant), I got curious as to how many poets (and which poets) had previously been named fellows.

The answers?

40 poets, including McHugh, have received MacArthur Fellowships since the MacArthur Foundation began offering them in 1981.

Here they are, from least recent to most recent recipient:

A.R. Ammons
Joseph Brodsky
Derek Walcott
Robert Penn Warren
Brad Leithauser
A.K. Ramanujan
Robert Hass
Charles Simic
Galway Kinnell
John Ashbery
Daryl Hine
Jay Wright
Douglas Crase
Richard Kenney
Mark Strand
May Swenson
Allen Grossman
Jorie Graham
John Hollander
Alice Fulton
Eleanor Wilner
Amy Clampitt
Irving Feldman
Thom Gunn
Ann Lauterbach
Jim Powell
Adrienne Rich
Sandra Cisneros
Richard Howard
Thylias Moss
Susan Stewart
Linda Bierds
Edward Hirsch
Ishmael Reed
Campbell McGrath
Anne Carson
Lucia Perillo
C.D. Wright
Peter Cole
Heather McHugh