In 1992 he was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for his "Collected Shorter Poems" and in 1996 the National Book Award in poetry for his "Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey". Shortly after the debut of "Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey", he also won the $50,000 Lannan Literary Award. His later titles include the 2001 collection of poems "Doctor Jazz" and a 70-minute audio CD of him reading selections from "Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey" and "Collected Shorter Poems." His "Last Poems" (Copper Canyon Press, 2012) combines poems written toward the end of his life with the concluding poems from twenty-six of his previous volumes. Other awards with which he was honored included the Carl Sandburg Award, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, the Paterson Poetry Prize, the 1990 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Vermont Governor's Medal and the Whiting Award.