1990 The World Doesn't End by Charles Simic (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich)
1991 Near Changes by Mona Van Duyn (Alfred A. Knopf)
1992 Selected Poems by James Tate (Wesleyan University Press)
1993 The Wild Iris by Louise Gluck (The Ecco Press)
1994 Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems by Yusef Komunyakaa (Wesleyan University Press/University Press of New England)
1995 The Simple Truth by Philip Levine (Alfred A. Knopf)
1996 The Dream of the Unified Field by Jorie Graham (The Ecco Press)
1997 Alive Together: New and Selected Poems by Lisel Mueller (Louisiana State University Press)
1998 Black Zodiac by Charles Wright (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
1999 Blizzard of One by Mark Strand (Alfred A. Knopf)

1990s Pulitzers. This decade marks the apogee of the style I have been studying recently. With Simic, Tate, Gluck, Wright and Strand taking 5 out of 10 prizes.

Later: do Charles W. and Louise belong in this company, asks John E (The Skeptic)? Louise does: she has that stiff poetic diction of the period style, though not the zany anecdotes. I'd have to think about Charles W, who often bores me to tears. To me he exemplifies "the New Yorker poem." I mentioned yesterday an interview with the other Charles (Simic) in which he names these other four as his favorite contemporaries. The more I study it, the less I'm convinced I know what the period style really is, what I originally meant by this concept.