[2] The inaugural prize, chosen by a jury of Fellows in American Letters of the Library of Congress, was first awarded to Ezra Pound for his collection of poems The Pisan Cantos.
The choice of a work by a man who had been a committed fascist sympathizer and who was then under indictment for treason in World War II for his anti-Semitic broadcasts infuriated many.
[1][4][5] The Bollingen Foundation decided to continue the program with the administrative tasks being handled by the Yale University Library.
In 1973, the Mellon Foundation established an endowment of $100,000 to enable the Yale Library to continue awarding the prize in perpetuity.
It has also been won by Walter W. Arndt for his translation of Eugene Onegin, and in 1963 by Richard Wilbur and Mona Van Duyn jointly.