Despite his third book of verse's relative success, Berryman's great poetic breakthrough occurred with "77 Dream Songs" (1964). It won the 1965 Pulitzer Prize for poetry and solidified Berryman's standing as one of the most important poets of the post-World War II generation that included Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, and Delmore Schwartz. Soon thereafter, the press began to give Berryman a great deal of attention, as did arts organizations and even the White House, which sent him an invitation to dine with President Lyndon B. Johnson (though Berryman declined because he was in Ireland at the time). Berryman was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1967, and that same year "Life" magazine ran a feature story on him. Also that year the newly created National Endowment for the Arts awarded him a $10,000 grant (when a Minneapolis reporter asked him about the award, he said that he had never heard of NEA before receiving it).