Each year links to its corresponding "[year]() in poetry" article:
- 1950: Yale Younger Poets Award for A Change of World.
- 1952: Guggenheim Fellowship
- 1960: National Institute of Arts and Letters Award
- 1970: Shelley Memorial Award
- 1974: National Book Award for Poetry (a split award) for Diving into the Wreck[21]
- 1979: Honorary Doctorate Smith College
- 1986: Inaugural Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize
- 1989: Honorary doctorate from Harvard University
- 1989: National Poetry Association Award for Distinguished Service to the Art of Poetry
- 1990: Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement (for gay or lesbian writing)
- 1991: Common Wealth Award of Distinguished Service
- 1991: Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences[65]
- 1992: Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize
- 1992: Poets' Prize for Atlas of the Difficult World
- 1992: Frost Medal
- 1992: Academy of American Poets Fellowship
- 1994: MacArthur Fellowship
- 1996: Wallace Stevens Award
- 1997: National Medal of Arts (refused)
- 1999: Lifetime Achievement Award from the Lannan Foundation
- 2006: National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters[66]
- 2006: David R Kessler Award for LGBTQ Studies, CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies[67]
- 2010: Lifetime Recognition Award from the Griffin Poetry Prize
- 2017: Finalist, Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (posthumous)[68]
- 2019: In June 2019, Rich was one of the inaugural fifty American "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes" inducted on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument (SNM) in New York City's Stonewall Inn.[69][70] The SNM is the first U.S. national monument dedicated to LGBTQ rights and history,[71] and the wall's unveiling was timed to take place during the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.[72]
