 The recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Ingram Merrill Foundation, he received the Arts Council Alumni Award from Boston College in 2013, for his career as a poet, writer, educator, and arts administrator.He has lectured and given readings widely across America, and also in France, Italy, England, and China.After serving as Assistant Director of the Graduate Writing Program at New York University, Polito became the Director of the Writing Program and Chair of the Humanities Department at the New School in 1992.