Poetry Foundation Trustees

John J. Kenney, Chair

John Barr, President
Willard Bunn, Trustee
Gail Bush, Trustee
Thomas C. Cronin, Trustee
Kim Coventry, Trustee
Sylvia Manning, Trustee
Robert C. McCormack, Trustee
Stuart J. Miller, Trustee
Charles E. Pierce, Vice Chair
Paul Ruxin, Trustee
Robert Wedgeworth, Vice Chair
Benna Wilde, Secretary

Honorary Trustee

Ruth Lilly
American poetry has no greater friend than Ruth Lilly. Over many years and in many ways, it has been blessed by her personal generosity. In 1985 she endowed the Ruth Lilly Professorship in Poetry at Indiana University.

In 1986 she established the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. Awarded annually, the $100,000 prize honors a living US poet whose lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition. In 1989 she created two Ruth Lilly Fellowships, for $15,000 each, given annually by the Poetry Foundation to undergraduate or graduate students selected through a national competition. In 2002 her lifetime engagement with poetry culminated in a magnificent bequest that will enable the Poetry Foundation to promote, in perpetuity, a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture.