Each year’s Annual Dinner includes the presentation of a poem specifically commissioned for the event. This page archives the poems from recent years. All copyrights are retained by the authors. If citing any of these poems or artworks, please cite them as they originally appeared in the Annual Dinner Programs, archived here.

2016
Henry Weinfeld
Paradise Lost. A Poem in Twelve Books: The Shorter Version

2017
Tyehimba Jess
When I Consider How My Light Is Spent

2018
Linda Gregerson
Not So Much an Ending as an Entanglement

2019
Rosanna Warren
Samson, 1674 (for John Milton)

2020
Daisy Fried
The Poet Applying for Medicaid on Behalf of Her Disabled Husband

2021
Richard Kenton Webb
Twelve Drawings Inspired by Lycidas

2022
Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
He Hears Music on the Mountain Top

2023
Uraoán Noel
To a Dispersal

2024
Suzanne Buffam
An Invocation

2025
Camille Guthrie