Albert Goldbarth, the Adele B. Davis Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at Wichita State University, has won the Mark Twain Poetry Award, part of the Poetry Foundation's annual Pegasus Awards.

This is only the third Mark Twain award given by the Poetry Foundation, one of the largest literary organizations in the world.

Albert Goldbarth

The award was given to Goldbarth for his contribution to humor in American poetry. It includes a gift of $25,000.Goldbarth was given the award in a ceremony Tuesday, Oct. 7, at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion Stage at Millennium Park in Chicago.

The Pegasus Awards are a series of annual prizes with an emphasis on new awards to under-recognized poets and types of poetry.

Goldbarth is the author of 25 collections of poetry, including "The Kitchen Sink: New and Selected Poems 1972-2007"; five essay collections; and a novel. The Chicago native has taught at Wichita State since 1987.

He has twice won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry, the only poet to win the award twice, and has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation.

His work has appeared regularly in the Poetry Foundation's magazine, Poetry, since 1971. In 2005 he received the Frederick Bock prize from the magazine.

In 1999, he was named to the arts advisory board of the Judah L. Magnes Jewish Museum in Berkley, Calif.

Goldbarth has a new book, "To Be Read in 500 Years," to be published by Graywolf Press in May 2009.

For more information on Goldbarth's career, go to www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/1295.

For more information on the Pegasus Awards, go to www.wichita.edu/award.