Bruce Smith, author of several books of poems including Songs for Two Voices, The Other Lover, and Mercy Seat, was recently awarded a 2010 Academy Award in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The award, which not only offers its recipients formal recognition by one of the foremost arts institutions in the country, but a cash prize as well, will be presented in New York in May at the Academy’s annual Ceremonial.
Read the press release at the Academy of Arts and Letters website.
More about Smith’s poetry from his bio at The Poetry Foundation website:

Influenced by Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, Smith’s poetry moves like jazz, incorporating images and narratives into a startling, musically unified whole. In a 2007 interview, Smith explained his poetry’s aspiration to song: “When the language works to seduce and … move us, when it works its blues on us, bounces us and trembles us, makes us swerve from our upright and rational propositions … we are thinking and listening at the same time or really listening and not thinking, like a good song does.”

Follow the links for more on Smith’s works from the University of Chicago Press:
Songs for Two Voices
The Other Lover
Mercy Seat