The Poetry Foundation presented David Ferry with the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize at the Pegasus Awards in Chicago on May 11. Now in its 26th year, this $100,000 lifetime achievement award is one of the nation’s largest literary prizes and is awarded annually to a living U.S. poet to recognize extraordinary accomplishments.

Ferry has received many distinguished awards and fellowships throughout his career and has authored, edited, or translated more than a dozen books. His newest collection, Bewilderment: New Poems and Translations, is forthcoming in 2012. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts and serves as the emeritus Sophie Chantal Hart Professor of English at Wellesley College. He is also a visiting lecturer in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at Boston University and a distinguished visiting scholar at Suffolk University.