Lee has won numerous poetry awards:[1]
- 1986: Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award, from New York University, for Rose
- 1988: Whiting Award
- 1990: Lamont Poetry Selection for The City in Which I Love You
- 1995: Lannan Literary Award
- 1995: American Book Award, from the Before Columbus Foundation, for The Wingéd Seed: A Remembrance
- 2002: William Carlos Williams Award for Book of My Nights (American Poets Continuum) Judge: Carolyn Kizer
- 2003: Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets, which does not accept applications and which includes a $25,000 stipend
- Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts
- Fellowship, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
- Grant, Illinois Arts Council
- Grant, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
- Grant, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts
