Established in 1988 by Professor Philip Bobbitt, his father, and
the Library of Congress as the only national poetry award given
by the United States. The Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National
Poetry prize is awarded every other year for the best book of
poetry published by a living United States author during the
preceding two years. It was established in 1988 and is the only
national poetry award given by the United States. The $10,000
prize is given by the family of the late Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt
of Austin, Texas, in her memory. She was the late President
Lyndon B. Johnson's sister and, while a graduate student in
Washington, D.C., during the 1930s, was an employee of the
Library of Congress, where she met coworker and college student
O. P. Bobbitt, whom she later married. Their son, Professor
Philip C. Bobbitt, related, "After my mother's death, I
discovered a cache of old index cards apparently used as
surreptitious notes under the eyes of a superintendent who
supposed perhaps that mother was typing Dewey d