The Poetry Society of America is pleased to announce that N. Scott Momaday is the 2021 recipient of the Frost Medal for distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry. Named for Robert Frost, and first given in 1930, the Frost Medal is one of the oldest and most distinguished awards in American poetry. Previous winners of the award include Marianne Moore, Gwendolyn Brooks, Allen Ginsberg, Adrienne Rich, Lucille Clifton, Marilyn Nelson, Susan Howe, and, most recently, Toi Derricotte.

The Frost Medal citation from the Poetry Society of America's Board of Governors reads:

N. Scott Momaday is a critically acclaimed poet, novelist, and essayist. He spent his early years in the Southwest where his parents taught on Navajo, Apache, and Jemez Pueblo reservations. In his childhood, ​in his words, his "mother [who was well versed in English literature] taught me how to discover the wealth within books" and his father, "who was Native American of the Kiowa tribe and whose first language was unwritten, told me stories from the Kiowa oral tradition." Such early influences guided his life, whether formal education or aesthetic choices. Indeed, his poems, often meditations on mortality, love, and loss, as well as reflections on the American landscape, evoke the essence of human experience. He is also a much beloved teacher who built his reputation specializing in Native American oral traditions. Current U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo writes of his 2020 collection The Death of Sitting Bear: New and Selected Poems: "When you read these poems, you will learn to hear deeply the sound a soul makes as it sings about the mystery of dreaming and becoming."