Award Isaac Rosenbaum Poetry Award, 1968

Grove Press fellowship, 1960

Asia Society grant for Yale University, 1961

Fulbright grant for Iran, 1961-62

Ford Foundation fellow at University of Chicago, 1963

Shared first prize (with John Berryman and Hayden Carruth), New "Chicago" Poem Competition, Chicago Daily News, 1963

New Poetry Series Award, Swallow Press, 1965

Excellence in Teaching Award, Northern Illinois University, 1967

Grant, National Translation Center, 1969

Poetry Award, Society of Midland Authors, 1973 and 1978

Robert F. Fergusson Memorial Award, Friends of Literature, 1974

Winner, All Nations Poetry Contest, 1974

Poetry fellow, National Endowment for the Arts, 1975-76

Islands and Continents Translation Award, 1978

Illinois Arts Council award from Poetry on the Buses Contest, 1978

Literary Awards, 1979, 1983, 2001, and artists' grant, 1983

Illinois Governor's Award for the Arts, 1980

Rockefeller Foundation fellow, 1983

Illinois Author of the Year, 1992

Lucien Stryk Prize, American Literary Translators Association

Honorary doctorate, Northern Illinois University