Van Duyn won every major U.S. prize for poetry, including the National Book Award (1971) for "To See, To Take", the Bollingen Prize (1971), the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize (1989), and the Pulitzer Prize (1991) for "Near Changes". She was the U.S. Poet Laureate between 1992 and 1993. Despite her accolades, her career fluctuated between praise and obscurity. Her views of love and marriage ranged from the scathing to the optimistic. In "What I Want to Say", she wrote of love: