The Clement Hoyt Memorial Award was one of the early and most distinguished of the designations of excellence in haiku awarded by Modern Haiku. Begun under the editorship of Kay Titus Mormino, the award was first granted in the summer 1971 issue and ran through the summer of 1981, that is, into the editorship of Robert Spiess. The prize was named in honor of Clement Hoyt and underwritten by his widow, Violet Hoyt. Initially the award brought a cash prize of $5.00 but from 1977 onward was replaced by a volume of Hoyt’s collected haikai.