The Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine have announced this year’s winners of the prestigious Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships: Safia Elhillo, Hieu Minh Nguyen, sam sax, Natalie Scenters-Zapico, and Paul Tran. With each poet receiving $25,800, the fellowship is among the largest for young poets in the United States.

Established by Ruth Lilly in 1989, the fellowship has expanded from just one student recipient to five recipients who do not need to be enrolled in an academic program. The fellowship is open to any US poets between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one regardless of institutional affiliation. Previous fellows include Fatimah Asghar, Danez Smith, Kaveh Akbar, Erika L. Sánchez, and Ocean Vuong.

“Our 2018 fellows created their own trails and important beautiful markers for those who will follow them into the future,” said Poetry editor, Don Share. “Each of these fellows energetically speaks to and contributes to the ever-increasing interest in contemporary poetry, especially among young people.”

The five awardees will read together at the Dodge Poetry Festival in October. In addition, the December 2018 issue of Poetry magazine will feature a selection of their work.